Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ducklet DeskPhoto

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. Sango123 00:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ducklet DeskPhoto

Non-notable software product; 4 Google hits. --Haakon 10:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as per nom. Dlyons493 Talk 11:38, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. DarthVader 12:13, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Thε Halo ^Θ 12:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete — per nom. --AbsolutDan ^(talk) 18:11, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
• Abstain — , since I'm the author. Hello wikipeople, it's me, the author of the Ducklet DeskPhoto article. Thank you for the spanking. I will be honest, open, calm, and reasonable in this discussion.

I'm new here (well, new to Wikipedia--not to the planet), so I didn't know all the rules. Common sense gave me some inkling of what the rules probably were, but I knew that wasn't enough so I did a fair amount of due diligence before posting the article in question. I read about posting policies, etc. for more than an hour before and during the writing of the post.

I learned many important rules and guidelines while doing this research, and ran across a number of examples that helped my education as well. Among them were:

1. Stick to the facts. I tried to do that.
2. I noticed there are many articles on software programs, so I gathered that an article about a software program was (at least in some cases) appropriate. From these I found the Infobox_Software template (and learned all about templates in the process, whee!).
3. As hard as I tried to find guidelines on posting about specific types of content, I was unable to find anything specific to software projects. Thanks, Haakon, for using the wording "non-notable software project" in your nomination for deletion--that helped me find the proposed Wikipedia policy on Software Notability. The proposal seems reasonable so I won't dispute it here, even though it's only a proposal, not adopted. (Besides, this wouldn't be the place to dispute it anyway.)
4. Be bold. I saw this recommendation many times. I like the spirit of this recommendation--pull lurkers out of the woodwork to have more people contributing. Nice.

It was in the spirit of be bold that I finally decided to go ahead and post my article even though I still wasn't sure if it was appropriate. If it wasn't, someone would point that out to me. (As you have done.)

Oh well. Live and learn. I said I would be honest: I will honestly admit that my goal was to do a bit of PR and generate interest in the software. I can also honestly state that I tried my best to do so in a professional manner and tried hard to follow all the rules of Wikipedia that I knew about, and even to follow the spirit of Wikipedia since, being so new, I couldn't possibly know all the rules. My attempt to follow the spirit shows, I hope, in the tone of the article (facts, not hyperbole or opinion) and in the similarity it bears to Wikipedia articles about other software programs.

By the way, I'm not sure how you got only 4 hits on Google, Haakon. Just a a factual point, when I search for ducklet deskphoto or +ducklet +deskphoto or "ducklet deskphoto" I get 16-17 hits. I'm not disputing that it's not notable--it's not like I get 13 million hits or anything--but it's also not 4. :-)

Thanks for reading all this.

President and Chief Executive Quacker, Ducklet BMorearty 05:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment Thanks for the message (not at all long and boring) and I hope we haven't been too curt about your article. A lot of real rubbish appears on AfD and we're all volunteers without a lot of time, so sometimes articles get fairly short shrift. We appreciate the spirt in which you've taken the comments and look forward your next! Dlyons493 Talk 21:26, 7 August 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.