Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FCKGW 2

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 KEEP. The raw vote totals are 4 Delete, 2 Keep, 6 Merge, with two Keep or Merge. Since I don't want to merge the article (see below), I'll use the discretion granted by the latter two and count those as Keep, giving 4-4-6 as the Delete-Keep-Merge totals. There is clearly no numberical consensus to delete, and the Delete arguments are not made strongly, mostly being variations of "per nom", although the nominator does make a good case.

As to merging: first of all, some of the Merge votes are "merge with something", which hardly really counts; the merge target seemed to eventually focus on Windows XP. I don't see this as a good merge target, at all. If this material doesn't deserve its own article, how does it deserve pride of place in an important article such as Windows XP. Merging it into that article would be a significant promotion of the material, and I don't think that all of the Merge commentors thought that through. Further, Windows XP is an important article that potentially contains or could contain a lot of important material, yet has to be kept down to size. Merging in this material would potentially force the removal (or the non-addition) of more important material. The material could perhaps be severely redacted before the merge, but it's not clear to me how to do this, what material could be deleted; it all seems of more or less equal importance. This could be a failure of imagination on my part. Anyway, I don't see Merge as a good result.

On the other hand, I don't want to wimp out with a No Consensus. Ten of fourteen commentors thought that the masterial should be retained in some fashion, and that, along with no great weakness of arguments, leads to a Keep result. Herostratus 07:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FCKGW

FCKGW (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) - (View log)

Article about a CD key once used for pirated copies of Microsoft Windows. Previously kept as no consensus. If there's notability here, it's lost on me. It used to be, before Microsoft started cracking down on such things that you could search for serialz or warez and find your heart's content of CD keys for Windows - so I'm not sure why this one really matters. You probably still can for other things. The only source is from a warez website, so that's not exactly reliable. BigDT 20:28, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Information is accurate and of historical value. H264 15:17, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. This is neither encyclopedic nor notable. Soltak | Talk 22:50, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep or Merge into... something - While the exact term "FCKGW" was not covered in the media directly (probably for legal reasons) the fact that a copy of Windows XP was pirated more than a month before its official release was. This article would probably work best as a section of an article on Windows piracy, or Microsoft PR nightmares, or something along those lines; while it is a notable event, it is probably not notable enough for its own article. As to the notability of "FCKGW" specifically, Microsoft specifically banned any serial keys containing that string for all their products, even Office. It may be hard to verify, but the act has promoted "FCKGW" to notable status in many circles. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 23:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I can see obvious reasons FCKGW would be banned as being part of a key having nothing to do with piracy (fill in the missing letter U, as appropriate). But is that really a notable event? Everyone has blacklists and I'm sure Microsoft has other strings that they blacklist from being in their product keys as well. As for the piracy ... in my college days, having a copy of a program before it was released was nothing. Guys on my hall played Age of Empires for a month or so before it came out. (Obviously, now, I have different values and opinions than I did at the time.) I don't know ... maybe it's a minor internet meme or something ... but it just sounds like a warez group wanting to promote itself. --BigDT 23:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• At the time it was definitely notable, as it affected numerous other pieces of software that (arguably) had not been pirated with that key. As far as being a warez group promoting itself, that would be unnecessary, given that the group received all the attention it could ever want via media coverage of the initial piracy incident. "FCKGW" was just the most memorable part of the key they used. -- Y|yukichigai (_ramble argue ^check) 01:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete there are probably three unique sentences here that aren't in other articles. Being released early wasn't anything notable. Microsoft has a six week lag from RTM to Retail. All the beta testers - public and private (few hundred thousand), plus every Microsoft employee/contractor/vendor (about 200,000 people), so having a copy of XP before it was "released" was pretty boring. The only notable thing was that this key was a volume license. Big woop. SchmuckyTheCat 04:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • There's more than just beta testers ... I've had Vista installed on a test box for six months because we have an MSDN subscription. Anyone on the planet with $1500 or whatever it runs can get MSDN. --BigDT 06:22, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination. What next, serialz for Photoshop? Office? Flyingtoaster1337 05:30, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge into something. I think it is significant enough. --Ihmhi 19:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge, but not delete. I personally found this page helpful and have actually come across this on occasion before finding it on Wikipedia i.e. significant. Merge it to Windows XP or soemthing. Big ups to the hacker who did this. --Hollerbackgril 03:54, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge Intresting enough to warrent mentions but not all together too important since the key is now defunct with current versions of Windows XP Jamesbuc
• Merge. Very informative; what happened to the pic of the guy holding up the fckgw disk? --froth^T 22:53, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I've noticed a lot of merge votes but no further specifics. Merge into what? Soltak | Talk 22:58, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Seen it referenced enough on other websites like digg and slashdot to warrant a page about. 71.34.10.45 23:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Question Are anon users permitted to vote in afd? If so I'll log out and make thirty or so delete entries. ;-) Soltak | Talk 00:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Go right ahead and do that, you'll see what happens ;-). also I said to merge into Windows XP article, you seem to have ignored me.--Hollerbackgril 04:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Sorry, I missed that one. Stupid comment withdrawn. Soltak | Talk 19:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge - While I believe that this should not be a stand-alone article, I do believe it should be kept. Perhaps merge with Windows_xp. I think this article has enough merit to keep, but a blurb about a specific CD Key for Windows XP should belong within the main article. Perhaps under a heading for "Windows XP Release". If anyone has a better suggestion on where to merge this, please speak up. Commodorepants 04:48, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

The place to merge it is volume license key. SchmuckyTheCat 08:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep or Merge - it is part of the history of license keys, windows, xp, activation, etc. Pck (pun intended) one and merge it in somewhere. Should probably also be added to some list of 5 letter combinations. — MrDolomite | Talk 16:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Merge to Windows XP#Product activation. Pomte 04:50, 22 January 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.