Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Foobar2000

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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 no consensus to delete, default to keep. Not an outright "keep" because, frankly, the level of the discussion was often poor. Issues such as verifiability and notability were not seriously addressed by many "keep" opinions. (For the record, I'm listening to music on foobar2000 as I type this. It's good software, yes, but the article must refer to reliable sources.)  Sandstein  19:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] foobar2000

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Foobar2000 (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Delete. While I cannot seem to locate any notability guidelines specific to software, this fails WP:N in general and lacks anything in the way of reliable third party sources about the subject. coccyx bloccyx(toccyx) 17:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Strong keep Very notable for its advanced features, including Tagz (which is used by Winamp as well). --Kjoonlee 19:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, this is sourceable per WP:SOFTWARE. Google News Archive & a few Google Books results including this. --Dhartung | Talk 19:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep, per Dhartung. -- Xompanthy (talk) 20:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
    • But note the book Dhartung mentioned is not a good source; it's actually copied from Wikipedia. --Kjoonlee 00:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
      • So it is, so it is. Blasted preview mode! It's a 2006 book, too, and our wording definitely precedes that publication date. --Dhartung | Talk 07:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, foobar2000 in audioplayer with exceptional features (which are, of course, not obvoius at first glance) and a very small footprint. The range of features exceeds most other audio players for windows, especially iTunes and most probably also Winamp. I assume that foobar2000 is the preferred choice for people managing (as in tag, organize, share) and listening to a large (as in 100+ GB) library of audio files, so the article is definitely required to help people make an educated choice on which application to use. Also foobar2000 is a non-profit project and not used to advertise artists as winamp (owned by time warner) or a proprietary platform and rather expensive online store as in the case of e.g. itunes. As for sources, about halt the web sources cited for the winamp article are on the winamp.com pages, admittedly that ratio is slightly better for the itunes article. I totally agree, however, that the article on foobar2000 needs to be improved. --2008-05-31 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.110.199.118 (talk) 15:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep! foobar2000 is known across the internet for its extraordinary feature set, dedication to engineering quality, and modular, light-weight design. I have previously attempted to update this page, but it is quite difficult, as few of its features are listed by any external sources. As a result, the attempts to add information to this page are largely rebuffed by Wikipedia editors. I've since stopped bothering to try. Because of its non-profit nature, there is a lack of big media sources about foobar2000. There are boundless discussions about it on the larger web, however. Disclosure: I've been involved in the foobar2000 community since it began and now moderate the foobar2000 forums. -- Canar (talk) 01:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
    • So in other words you admit that there is no reliable and non-trivial third party coverage on the subject, but since WP:YOULIKEIT we should retain the article? That doesn't fly. coccyx bloccyx(toccyx) 15:39, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Comparatively, there are many other articles about subjects much less notable than foobar2000, objectively. WP:N fails at dealing with topics that are primarily online such as this one. Anyhow, I'm done here. Do whatever your Wikipedian legalism says you should do. This kind of nonsense is why I don't bother much with Wikipedia except when it involves something that matters to me. -- Canar (talk) 20:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Things like this is why I stopped bothering with WP. If foobar2000 is deleted because of noteability, then I fail to see how any other non-Microsoft music player for Windows except iTunes and Winamp and RealPlayer can have an article in Wikipedia. (RealPlayer is really noteable, isn’t it? Do you know what lengths some people go to in order to get rid of it?) By the same logic, any third-party audio player for MacOS should also be deleted (I fail to see how any of them is more notable than foobar2000, even if some are invaluable to many people, as they support formats that Apple does not care about, like FLAC or WavPack), and, also, all Linux music players. Is any of them notable? Which one? Amarok? Why? Because it is part of KDE? Rhythmbox? Why? Quod Libet? Hmm... Maybe this one has some noteability now thanks to the Debian incident -- by the way, if it wasn’t for Quod Libet I would not be able to use Linux, because no other audio player does what I need; but, by this logic, I would never hope to find an article about it in WP, and maybe I wouldn’t have learnt about it in the first place. -- I think whoever put this notice in the foobar2000 article is ignorant (that is, has no idea about audio players for perconal computers) or troll, or acts in bad faith. dkikizas (talk) 09:36, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, as per above. Eclipsed Moon (talk) 02:00, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp (talk) 17:26, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, as per above. --BrokenStoic (talk) 03:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, as per above. Yinepuhotep (talk) 04:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC) — Yinepuhotep (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Strong keep, as per above. admiraljustin (talk) 09:40, 23 May 2008 (UTC) — Admiraljustin (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Strong keep, as what (english-language, as germans magazines report on it a bit more in-depth) reviews i have seen about it over the years usually failed to perceive why one would need an audio player with more features than what winamp has to offer by default. Most magazines seem to be mostly concerned with the features (and uses) that are 'traditional', and most apparent to 'the average user' (ie. their audience), and since foobar2000's 0.95 default UI overhaul is arguably still fairly recent, they might not've caught on to the fact yet that Foobar might now be more marketable/'relevant' to their intended audiences these days. (Yes, i'm aware of the 'speculation on future coverage cannot be considered a currently valid source' guideline) Boombaard (talk) 08:35, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, foobar2000 is a very famous audio player. enough said. I don't know why would anyone want to delete its article, since a lot of much less known softwares have their pages. --Deathkenli (talk) 10:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong keep, foobar2000 has also been mentioned a few times on the Lifehacker blog (which has, in turn, been linked to a few times by Slashdot) --124.169.98.50 (talk) 12:43, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • comment Internet fame means nothing unless mentioned in stuff that passed WP:RS.Geni 14:08, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Updated comment While I am seeing a large number of WP:PERABOVE type comments, none of them are hashing out the problem outlined in this nomination. There are no reliable non-trivial sources about this subject. It continues to fail WP:N and WP:SOFTWARE. The book cited by Dhartung on Google Books which mentions Foobar2000 lifted their text from this very Wikipedia article. coccyx bloccyx(toccyx) 15:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Just because the Google book lifted its text from this article does not mean that the book is now irrelevant. Just because the author did not know enough about foobar2000 to write the content himself/herself doesn't make the source more trivial. It just means that Wikipedia has become an important source of information for even knowledgeable people. --75.108.70.127 (talk) 23:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Cannot find anything to establish notability. This software seems to be confined to the realm of blogs and forums, and as fine a piece of code it might be, it's for the best if it stays there for now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.122.120.62 (talk) 02:22, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I think good faith would be best established by considering other media players listed in Comparison of media players for deletion as well. The list Canar provided was a good starting place: XMPlay, Songbird_(software), TrayPlayer, RadLight, NicePlayer, Media_Center_(software_application), and Media Player Classic. -- 75.153.11.50 (talk) 02:38, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Merge Perhaps merge the articles about 'less notable'/niche audio players into a single article about them. This is because, obviously, these programs do have a nice little core userbase; however, this userbase does not quite push them into the realm of mainstream software.11:31, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Other than what I've mentioned in my above two comments, I just wanted to mention that, in the case of the article's subject-matter not being verfiable, it seems that only the claim of supporting a "theoretical maximum sampling rate can be as high as 192 kHz" can't be verified, as far as I can tell. Everything else does seem to be mentioned on the software's website (which seems to fall under the category of a secondary source of information - see WP:PSTS), and could, possibly, be considered to be a form of general knowledge as the features mentioned can certainly be verified by anyone who happens to use the program (akin to having to verify that the sky is blue, and so forth) so it may not be entirely necessary to have other sources for such information. On the subject of notability, the lack of any current guidelines regarding software notability does make things tricky. However, as mentioned before, foobar2000 has been the subject of a few articles ([1]) on the Lifehacker blog (note that this is not a personal blog; rather, it is operated by a few editors, and is owned by a parent company, Gawker Media. Thus, I believe, that it falls under the category of reliable), as well as having an article about it ([2]) on Techspot - another reliable source, I believe. This is in addition to the numerous personal web sites, personal blogs, download sites, and community forums that make reference to foobar2000 (and can be found via a search engine). Hence, I believe, the article does meet the requirements set in WP:WEB for notability. Also, note that I am following these guidelines, rather than the more general notablity guidelines, as they do take into account the nature of web-based content, such as programs. --13:21, 24 May 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.169.5.240 (talk)
  • Comment While it's true that "me too" comments provide no info on notability, other comments do. If you search for foobar2000 on Google Book Search you can find "IPod& iTunes - Page 267 by Gerald Erdmann, Charlotte Stanek - 2007 - 704 pages" --Kjoonlee 22:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep but Work on It Keep, it's notable. But, the features section is more like an ad (with just a list of features). SimpsonsFan08 talk Sign Here Please and get Award 10:01, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein  09:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Relisting note: The "keep because it is good software" comments above are not helpful for establishing consensus. Further discussion should concentrate on whether the sources provided by 124.169.5.240 are sufficient with respect to verifiability and notability.  Sandstein  09:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Kindly note there were other people who mentioned other sources. Please don't forget those. --Kjoonlee 14:19, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Very strong keep - Are you kidding me? This is one of the most widely used media players, and it does assert notability. asenine say what? 10:21, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep I agree there is a problem with paper sources, but here is a recent one: [3]--Doug Weller (talk) 10:59, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep Per common sense. Widely used software. --neonwhite user page talk 22:47, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete — I'm not an expert on the subject, but it has few/no reliable references, doesn't seem to be notable, and doesn't seem to offer any information that wouldn't be found on its website. I also agree that most or all of the other articles mentioned should also be deleted, by the same criteria. Mr. Absurd (talk) 05:06, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • This is a very famous piece of software, and removing this article would be detrimental to the encyclopedia. Thus IAR compells me to vote keep. AfD hero (talk) 07:16, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Very strong keep - notable software, 2.5 million ghits.--Michael WhiteT·C 13:46, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Google hits are a poor indicator of notability. I can present to you any number of porn stars which receive equal if not more Google hits than this one. So far I have seen nothing in the way of non-trivial and independent publications about this subject, just a heavy reliance on WP:IAR and "PER ABOVE" type comments. If the community wishes to ignore our "rules" on verifiability and notability, then so be it, but that will probably increase the likelihood of this article being renominated down the road if the underlying issues cannot be corrected. coccyx bloccyx(toccyx) 16:26, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Lifehacker review, CNET review, Softpedia review.--Michael WhiteT·C 17:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Very good. Now lets analyze those links you've provided a bit more closely. How about we start with this supposed "CNET Review". In actuality it is not a CNET review, but a user-submitted review. Guess who the reviewer is. The review was submitted by the author of Foobar2000 himself [4] along with an unsigned "editor review" attributed to no one. The other two are the equivalent of blogs. I fully understand that the "consensus" here is willing to ignore all rules, including Wikipedia:Reliable sources, so who am I to argue at this point? It won't survive much longer at this rate. coccyx bloccyx(toccyx) 18:03, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Lifehacker is the 6th ranked blog according to the Technorati 100 and Softpedia is a top 300 website. How are these not reliable sources? And the CNET page does have an editor review.--Michael WhiteT·C 18:48, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
            • Between WP:N, WP:WEB and Michael's links, it would really seem to me that foobar2000 is, indeed, notable by Wikipedian legalism. "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be notable." foobar2000 has received significant coverage all over the internet, and even in a few "reliable sources". -- Canar (talk) 14:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep:' Per the references given above. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 19:45, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep:' The question that comes to my mind is, if this fails the standards for retaining, how many other pieces of software mentioned on WP also fail the same standards? Do we really want to open up that large of a can of worms? Yinepuhotep (talk) 03:18, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Vquex (talk) 17:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Please see WP:DOSPAGWYA --154.5.57.42 (talk) 09:15, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. Blogs do not meet WP:RS; if it really is notable, we will not need to rely entirely on them to establish notability. Vquex (talk) 17:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
    • And so you ignore all other sources. Maybe you're reading the wrong blogs as well. Language Log and the Freakonomics blog come to mind. --Kjoonlee 00:46, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Articles like the one on foobar2000 prove to be a serious problem wikipedia has not yet begun to solve. While entirely based on a commnuity effort for its content, the word of that community itself weighs near to nothing when debating WP:N. Blogs, forum threads and private pages are to be disregarded entirely, thus excluding phenomena and entities that are of relevance to a significant part of society. I have always assumed WP:WING to be true, simply because wikipedia allowed me to find relevant information about certain topics much faster than on google. That includes but is not limited to finding high quality free and opensource software for a given purpose, something that is VERY relevant to the majority of wikipedia users, and foobar2000 matters here, and not only because it does not open up your machine to potential attacks as the windows media player does. I agree that there is a thin line between spamming wikipedia with irrelevant articles and excluding relevant ones, and views differ which one is the safe side. In my opinion these matters cannot be solved by weighing guidelines alone, I think everybody discussing this issue also needs to read up and form an opinion on the subject, i.E. foobar2000, itself. There is no comparable audio player on windows in terms of light footprint, number of features (native and through plugins) and customizability. Regrettably I cannot prove that, there's plenty of webpages that explain a lot about foobar, and I could write another one, but alas, we are to trust only reliable sources. (talk) 07:59, 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.