Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dim 3

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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. ➔ REDVEЯS isn't wearing pants 22:01, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Dim 3

Dim 3 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

No real assertion of notability, let alone references to establish such. TexasAndroid 15:11, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep I disagree, there's a link to the Apple site, and other links as well, also links to games that use Dim3, and those sites link back to dim3 as well.

Be more specific please, just how "notable" do you want? infestedsmith 17:09, 24 October 2007

    • Sources are required to be reliable, independent, and non-trivial. Despite the puppet parade going on with this AFD, that requirement is not lessened. - TexasAndroid 13:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep It is hard to get good sources for those kinds of things despite how popular they are. I have more reasons I can't bother writing unless there is any real opposition to keep. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Darkcraft (talk • contribs) 11:32, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep as a piece of OSS, it's one of a handful of game engines available (excluding alpha-alpha and abandoned stuff which abounds on SourceForge and other such repositories). Sehr Gut 23:30, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep what kind of source could be sited? It's a program, the program itself is the source. Does anyone disagree or is the issue settled?Tmsgames 02:28, 26 October 2007 (UTC)tmsgames
    • Reliable, independent, and non-trivial sources are needed to show that the engine is notable. Basically, that it is being discussed in reliable media circles, independant of the engine itself, in a non-trivial way (passing mentions do not count). - TexasAndroid 13:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Yeah, I mean for goodness sakes, the danged download link is right there, go DL it and use it, and there ar sites that use it, it's on Apple, what more is needed? It's not an article about the French Revolution! It's just a page for the Game Engine Dim3, and plenty of people know about it.

Sorry, didn't know KEEP meant it was a vote, I'm new to Wiki. :Pinfestedsmith 22:24, 25 October 2007

    • Also, second vote from the same account. - TexasAndroid 13:12, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep dim3 is a very active project that's featured as a staff pick on Apple's site; the message board has 200+ users and about 13,000 posts and a number of games in development. I appreciate the desire to clean up entries, but the software is very active an very useful for many people. The last release had sustained downloads of over 10 gig a day. (dim3 Author Brian Barnes) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.247.221.172 (talk) 03:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Dim3 is well known in the mac dev community. Lack of "notability" notion is completely rubbish. If you (TexasAndroid) have no idea no what "Dim3" is or what community it has, and no motivation to visit the listed sites kindly keep your admin powers in check please, and redact the deletion request. Wikipedia has more than enough trouble with vandals without deleting items of software that you personally have no knowledge about. --OPless 20:10, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

TexasAndroid, this is the author again. I'd like to note that nothing on the dim3 wikipedia page is mine; I will likely never edit it as I trust my users to do that (and I want the page to be as non-partisan as possible.) I do not, though, want this page to disappear, and I'm wondering if you and I could talk about it over email so I could get to you whatever you felt you needed to make it "notable." dim3 was a staff pick on Apple's download side, which should make the software notable right there (http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/development_tools/dim3.html), and also listed in Apple's game engine site (http://www.apple.com/games/articles/2005/08/gamebuildingtools/), but, again, if that's not enough, please pull my email from this account I just created and let's talk about it (ggadwa). When you called the users asking for it to be kept a "puppet parade" I'm afraid your mind has already been made up, and would like the chance to personally try change it.

I apologize if this might be considered out-of-line or the wrong place for this, but I want to do everything I can to fix whatever problems you feel the entry might have. I must say that it was your prompting that caused the article to get much better from it's original state, so I thank you for putting that fire under the community, and any more steering would be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggadwa (talk • contribs) 15:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Another outside link from a internet games magazine: http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=312 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ggadwa (talk • contribs) 15:49, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


  • Texas, we have two reliable sources, an Apple article (in which Dim3 is listed is a hot game engine) and an IMG article. We have just as many sources as the Unity article, and just because it's a small game engine, doesn't mean it's not worthy of being in Wikipedia. It can't be a bigger one unless it gets more people. Also, I'm not voting, I'm answering things. You are one user, get someone else who agrees with you and maybe, but right now we have sources, and we have users, and we have games, that fulfills the requirements. So what's the problem? infestedsmith 9:03, 27 October 2007
  • Oh dear. Alex, please avoid doing that. Your argument is fine, and I agree with it, but getting angry, and accusing personal is *not* a good way for any other user who comes along to want to support the article. Gordon CSA 15:33, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Gaven just what are you talking about? Look at this Unity (Game Engine) and tell me what here makes it notable compared to dim3? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Infestedsmith (talk • contribs) 22:24, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
      • Just because other stuff exists doesn't mean this one deserves to as well. See WP:WAX. Subdolous 18:02, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
    • Um, is it just me, or do you admins have no intention of discussing this? We're making points here, but no one replies and no one comments, what's going on? infestedsmith —Preceding comment was added at 13:09, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

OK, everybody, let's take this one step at a time. TexasAndroid says no notability; now Gaven says no secondary sources to demonstrate reliability. Let's look at Wikipedia's own definition of reliable sources:

A reliable source is a published work regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. Evaluation of reliability will depend on the credibility of the author and the publication, along with consideration of the context. Reliable publications are those with an established structure for fact-checking and editorial oversight. A world-renowned mathematician may not be a reliable source about biology. Authors may be reliable outside their primary field if recognized as having expertise in a secondary area of study. In general, an article should use the most reliable and appropriate published sources to cover all majority and significant-minority published views, in line with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view.

I have two links from Apple; one where dim3 is a staff pick, which means Apple has used the software and finds it something it would recommend to users and one where Apple lists it on it's game creation page. These are, by Wikipedia's definition, a trustworthy or authoritative staff. Who would be more an authoritity on OS X software and who would be more trustworthy then Apple itself? What could be more notable for OS X software then be mentioned as a staff pick by Apple? This is the point of debate; repeating the "not reliable" phrase does not counter this argument. Please explain the continuation of this delete.Ggadwa 14:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)13:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

  • Weak keep, the Apple pages are not independent; but I was able to find one decent writeup without too much effort.[1] This software is really at the lowest end of the notability scale (compare with Earth, Moon, Sun, Charles Darwin, you get the drift I am sure), so the encyclopedia we are building wont miss this article if it is deleted -- so stop commenting ad nauseum here, and go fix the article ffs. Half you guys are IT people, so you should be able to write an excellent article - it needs to explain the technical design, and answer questions readers might have, such as when was it established. John Vandenberg 16:03, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitraty Section Break

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, John Vandenberg 16:11, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Conditional Keep - Notability guidelines must be followed for this article to stay. However, it appears that secondary, verifiable sources are available and need to be referenced within the article. If secondary, verifiable sources cannot be provided, the article needs to go. --BlindEagletalk~contribs 16:25, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Despite all the faulty arguements on the keep side by the article's authors (their arguements ammount to "it exists" and "I like it" neither of which are criteria for having an article in Wikipedia), there does not appear to be reliable, completely independent coverage of this software. ALL I can find at a google search is reprints of press releases written by the company itself, a few blog postings, and this [2] which should speak for itself... I added a tag above to address this. Also, the arguement that other, entirely deletable articles on Wikipedia does not make the shortcomings of this one disappear. Also, the existance of articles on NOTABLE subjects bearing a superficial commonality with this one also does not make this one notable as well. What would make it notable is extensive, truly independant coverage, of which this has NONE. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Is the MacWorld link provided above by John Vandenberg one of these press-release reprints you mention, or is it independant? If independant, it might actually give us atleast one reliable sourcing mention. - TexasAndroid 17:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
That forum article was created to get users to come fix up the page, and while it appeared to have started a small wave of single use accounts, that was not the original intention. I'm not really sure how it's speaking for itself other than saying that the users are interested in fixing the article, and some of them need to learn more about wikipedia before editing. Which can be said about everything. And yes, I'm a dim3 user myself, though I'm not going to give a keep/delete opinion, as I think that should be done by outside editors. 162.84.76.224 21:01, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:N asks for multiple references. We have 1. 1 is not multiple. I would like to see more before making a decision to keep this. While MacWorld is a reliable source, I would like to see more reviews in other sources. If this is a notable piece of software, it is bound to be discussed in many reliable sources. There are dozens of reliable trade journals and magazines that cover this industry; if ONE and ONLY ONE has done any sort of extensive review of this software, then that seems to fail the "multiple" requirement of establishing notability. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 17:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

We now have over 5 links to reviews, is that enough or is there something else we should do?Tmsgames 19:47, 30 October 2007 (UTC)tmsgames

The AFD was just relisted this morning to get more input, and thus will likely run another 4-5 days. The number of reviews may very well effect the end result, but really has little bearing on the ongoing AFD process. AFD runs for certain amounts of time, not until a certain number of reviews/references or some such are generated. That all said, if I had to guess based on the discussion to date, this is most likely to end in a "No Consensous" descision, which defaults to keep. - TexasAndroid 20:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
    • So basically the point is that dim3 has to have people writing about it without the author or company doing anything for it to be notable? Call me crazy, but doesn't that REALLY limit things? I thought wikipedia was a place where people could find information on anything, no matter how small, apparently that's not the case. Why is the Apple article NOT independent? Brian doesn't own Apple! Is there no mention of the IMG article? Or does that not count for some reason? infestedsmith
If you read way up at the top, I mentioned needing reliable, independent, and non-trivial sources way back when this began. Each of those three words is important, and you appear to finally be realizing the "independent" part. You are wrong about what the project is about with your "no matter how small" thought. WP is about documenting notable things, not everything. Please read WP:NOTE for fuller details on the concept of notability as it is practiced on the project. - TexasAndroid 20:05, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Comment Regardless of anything else, it's important to remember that WP is a tertiary source, IE we craft articles from secondary sources - commentators who review or discuss the subject in question. Original research is a big no-no, we have to use reliable sources which in turn demonstrate the notability of the subject. That's general stuffs, I'd like to look at the sources in the article before a yay or nay..Someone another 20:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitrary Section Break 2

At this point, I've read the wikipedia rules a number of times and attempting to do everything in my power (aside from editing the article, which is something I won't do as I'm the author.) The hang-up still seems to be 'reliable', 'independent', and 'non-trivial.' As noted, there are a number of links, some are reviews, and the most important ones come from Apple itself. My question is this, and I think it's the crux of this discussion -- which one of the requirements are these breaking? Take the Apple one for instance.

Independent: I have NO relationship with Apple, I'm just a developer. I have no developer license nor have paid Apple (or gotten any money) from Apple. My software works on OS X, and that's the totality of the relationship.

Non-Trivial: Obviously, Apple is non-trivial, it's a large well known company. Is it reliable?

Reliable: That's sort of a value judgment, but I think it would be a good call to say yes.

The others are reviews (from mac oriented magazines or game oriented sites.) None of these were written or lead by myself. Are they independent because of this? Yes. Non-Trivial? Reliable? Those are almost judgment calls.

Again, I didn't actually know about this article until my users (who created it and keep it) noted it on the message board. Have we discussed it on the message board? Yes, we have, but the point is that my users are vocal, this is certainly not a puppet parade. And, as you look, what this has all done is gotten us to discuss what needs to be in the article to make it fit with what the admins would like. This is what every community lead project should be like. Bring in the new people, help prod them along, and grow things in the right way. As Colonel Warden mentioned.

The dim3 article obviously started out as a "newbie" article, full of things that would tag it for instant deletion -- but now has obviously grown way beyond that to a much stronger and better cited article, and we are discussing it and continuing to grow it with these ideas in mind.

As for independent cites (For Jaryon32), I think you need to consider the MacWorld, Inside Mac Games, and Apple's site as 2 non-press release articles and a staff-pick at Apple. Ggadwa 20:37, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

There are Sock puppets and then there are Meat Puppets. One person pretending be many is the first. Multiple people acting in a sort of hive-mind is the latter. This AFD roused up people on your board, and a number of them flocked here to defend the article. That really is meat puppetry, and it's what I meant by "Puppet parade". They really were all acting in concert via the outside the project discussions. A flock of brand-new accounts showning up on a deletion debate is far from a one-time occurrence around here. But it's still not something we enjoy seeing. - TexasAndroid 21:00, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
I can understand your reference here and apologize if the community got a little out of hand; but as you see it a lot you can also see why the community might be roused to action, but again I apologize. I do hope though, that after the AFD started, it certainly did have a profound and good effect on the article.Ggadwa 03:46, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. And as I said above, my current best-guess is that this debate will eventually be closed as No Consensous, which defaults to Keep. There are a few too many Delete comments for a full Keep result, but even disreguarding the SPA accounts from the start of this, there are more than enough Keep opinions that I really doubt that the article is going away. And the debate has actually brought out what appear to be two good solid references to show that the engine does indeed have notability. Marginal notability, maybe, but still notability. :) - TexasAndroid 13:02, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


  • Keep Macworld and Inside Mac Games seem perfectly reliable to me, in turn satisfying notability's multiple sources requirement, which is the crux of the matter. Macworld's article is not huge, but it's coverage, whereas the Inside Mac Games article is substantial and should provide plenty of material for cites.Someone another 20:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
    • A short burst of coverage is not proof of notability, according to WP:N. The key here is significant coverage, which I do not believe is present. Subdolous 21:18, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
The articles are dated 2004 and 2006 - they're at different stages of the software's development rather than "a short burst of present news coverage". As far as significant coverage goes, both sources pass the points raised in WP:N, to my eyes (sources address the subject directly in detail, no original research is needed, more than trivial but may be less than exclusive). I must admit I'd much prefer having more sources and can find no others currently, but I'm unconvinced that this fails WP:N.Someone another 21:58, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep. Seems to have decent sources, could use more. A bit of cleanup couldn't hurt it. How does this fit under WP:SOFTWARE? --Dennis The Tiger (Rawr and stuff) 00:19, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep. A review in 2004 in InsideMacGames and an article in 2006 in Macworld - that's not a lot of independent press coverage, so I'd say this is borderline notable. Which I think should default to keep. --Allefant 14:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep At least 2 references in reliable sources have been provided, as well as some of borderline reliability, have been provided. I am convinced upon reading those that this one BARELY keeps its head above water... but it does, and thus is notable. I have struck through my prior vote. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 16:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

keep Its worth mentioning that dim3 is used by a number of academic institutions (including Bath Spa University) for coursework projects. Bath, for example, used dim3 as the core for the project to teach students how to set up convincing atmospheric environment contextual soundscapes. Such projects are rarely listed outside of the these institutions. The accessibility of the dim3 engine allows people unfamiliar with coding to radially develop interactive 3d environments. The engine has its pro's and con's and wikipedia is meant to be an unbiased information repository.

The original article was very much a formatted Press Release and left to neglect. Flagging the article for deletion has definitely spurred the "MeatPuppets" to improved the quality of the entry.

It should also be noted that dim3 is one of the few 3d game editing pakages avalible to mac users. The others being unity and torque (and gtkRadient). There is a lack of promotion on the behalf of the engine's developers - and as such there are far fewer users than competing products. I personally came across it from an IGN review. IGN Dim3 Articles

Personally I treat wikipedia as the fount of all knolege, and removing something that is of great interest to Mac users because it was badly written would be a sore shame.

I think it would help the organization if a "Mac Game Engines" category was created or given its own sub-section on [List_of_game_engines]. This would allow a comparison grid of the available products. (I don't think that concatenating the dim3 article into another would be a good idea)

As for a reason why dim3 is notable, It is the only free 3d game engine with editing tools avalibe on the Mac . (Quake 3 + gtkRadient isnt practical for most users)

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.96.106 (talk) 14:04, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment Yes, but all that is irrelevant to if we want an article about it on Wikipedia or not. Things like WP:V, WP:OR and (in our case here) WP:N are relevant for that. So, no matter how useful, interesting, popular, whatever something is, it needs to have those independent reliable "secondary" sources or gets deleted. --Allefant 17:45, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment IGN Dim3 Articles is very much relevant. Have you looked at the articles linked on that page? Detailed reviews of the dim3 engine from a 3rd party, highly reputable, online gaming site. For those who coudn't be bothered to click though here's the direct link to the IGN review. http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=312 Regarding Notability, its entirely subjective to a persons' opinion. And, in this case, to use it as a reason to remove an article by someone who hasn't demonstrated any knowledge of the field would be wrong. Would you let a french cooking specialist throw a book on 15th century poetry out of a library because he couldn't see its relevance? I have met several completely random strangers in the street who have used dim3. anecdotal, yes - but still proof of its 'notability'


Regarding WP:OR. Not really relivant here. Under those guidelines, the author contributing to the article is about as primary sourced information as possible - which ironically also would count against the article under the advertising guidelines.
WP:V is covered by the reviews (IGN etc), the download being on apple.com, the posts on the forum, and the fact hat there are several games already available based on the engine.

Admins, i think we need another arbitrary section break—Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.243.236.243 (talk) 18:50, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arbitraty Section Break 3

While it seems that the consensus is at least a default keep, it can't hurt to add more links: http://www.devmaster.net/engines/engine_details.php?id=292 This is basically a clearing house for 3D engines. It has reliability (as there are reviews) but would be a judgment call for notability. Some good places for potential cites.Ggadwa 20:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I've culled a few sections of the article that are not written in an encyclopedic manner, and I've sprinkled with added "[citation needed]" everywhere. To all the newcomers: those markers should not be removed until a third party reliable source can be used as a citation - user submitted stories dont cut the mustard. Also, the article still doesnt tell me when it was first released, or under exactly which license it was released. John Vandenberg 23:17, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment: I dont know if the citations for the data folder and the editor are really necessary. I agree with the others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.243.236.243 (talk) 23:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment In general, conversations on improving the article really should go to Talk:Dim 3. This AFD is really not the right place for such discussions, especially since this AFD will not remain easily linked to the article, while the Talk page is permenantly linked to it. And just in general, that's the right place for discussing improving the article, not here. - TexasAndroid 12:46, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment I understand, but for me the questions I'm asking aren't so much to improve the article but make it compliant; and as many times as I've read the guidelines the very nature that the delete is a discussion shows that there is opinion in the enforcement of the guidelines, so it's nice to know if I anything I find is something that the admins consider useful.
This brings me to an important question -- being the author of dim3 -- I've stayed away from editing the article as I assume that's the #1 red flag for deletion. If I edited it I'd stay away from anything that's opinion and stick with just wrote repetition of facts, changes in the current release version, cite fixes, etc. I'd like to improve, but I'm afraid the minute I edit it (to add the cites people would like above), that it would become a giant red flag for deletion. What's the policy -- in the admins eyes -- on this?
Thirdly, would the project's webpage be considered a good cite for the editor editing maps and the animator animating? Being that it's very much something that is obvious, it's not likely to get mentioned anywhere else. Like above, I don't know if a citation for the data folder is really necessary as it is also self explainatory, but that section could be further broken up into formats of the data which could be cited.
Again, sorry for all the comments but as I said before, the goal here is to make sure what gets edited is in alignment with what the guidelines and what the admins think.Ggadwa 13:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
Many people edit their own projects (and some even their own biographies, if you ever have heard of a certain Jimbo Wales), and while it's not considered the best idea, it often is ok (see WP:COI). E.g. if you fix some mistake in the article, nothing wrong with that. If you add links to self-written positive reviews, and delete any negative reviews someone else adds, then that would be a problem. Usually even that would not be a reason to delete the article though, just maybe to ban you if you continue doing it :)
About the webpage, the project's webpage would be a primary source, which is good as source for certain details - any cite is better than un-referenced info. The article just can't be sourced as a whole from only primary sources - Wikipedia does require some secondary sources before there can be an article. --Allefant 21:21, 2 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't quite understand the citations. Could you give an example of a citation for a map editor?Tmsgames 23:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)tmsgames
I replied on the article's talk page. --Allefant 01:21, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
I think that games made by other users would be a good secondary, and arguably primary, source. There are also an increasing number of tutorials for using and scripting the game engine available on the official forum (hosted by idevgames.com), which are all accessible to unregistered users. Would it be better to spin them off onto a separate site? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.103.44 (talk) 02:47, 3 November 2007 (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.