Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IBM 1130/snoopy calendar

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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. WP:OR is a 'pillar' policy. Daniel Bryant 09:56, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IBM 1130/snoopy calendar

IBM 1130/snoopy calendar (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

I do not think that this particular piece of code is notable Hq3473 23:55, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Delete Wikipedia is not a how-to guide or repository for code. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 00:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per above. Someguy1221 00:55, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete as per ObiterDicta, this is not an encyclopaedia article. -- Mithent 13:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. The Snoopy calendar is a famous piece of computing history. It's a little strange to actually have the code in the article, yes, but I think it's short enough that it's worth keeping. Pinball22 14:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Historically interesting. Not important, but neither are the sci-fi episode guides.... Tom 21:19, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete as unverified original research which makes a number of far-fetched and unprovable claims. Burntsauce 23:48, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep as part of the history of computing. If we lose this stuff, we lose a part of the past. Linuxrocks123 06:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom, fails requirements for verifiability and appears to be giving undue weight to the subject to boot. RFerreira 07:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Sometimes you have to WP:IAR. This is part of computing history. Agree it's not well sourced but of course this was before email and ftp.--Work permit 17:05, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
    • No, we should not "ignore all rules" in the face of original research which is most likely incorrect and untrue. If this is honestly a part of computing history as you claim, please dig up a couple reliable sources which reflect this and I will gladly change my position. RFerreira 06:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)ScorpioGuy 23:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)D—–°
  • Delete. As someone who actually worked on an 1130 I don't recall ever seeing a snoopy calendar. My opinion would be changed if some references were provided. I suspect that if there are references, they would not be 1130 specific so the article would need to be renamed. If the consensus is to not keep, then a transwiki to Wikisource should be strongly considered. Vegaswikian 05:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Apparently a part of computing history. Has a reference in the form of the Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal article from 1983, which specifically refers not to a Snoopy calendar, but "a line-printer Snoopy calendar for the year 1969" (fourteen years later!) as proof of computer expertise. It is also mentioned in the Hacker Test, "a compendium of fact and folklore about computer hackerdom, cunningly disguised as a test," which is not a great big reliable source but serves to show that the calendar has iconic status. Rename if appropriate, apparently not 1130-specific - the article seems to have been named such because the program can be run on a IBM 1130 emulator, by an editor who was new to Wikipedia conventions at the time, which is a formatting error, but not grounds for deletion. --Kizor 06:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. I'm old enough to remember seeing Snoopy calendars, although the programming always seemed a bit tedious. Historical interest. andy 22:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep ..The Snoopy Character and not the calendar was created by a classmate of mine who's name escapes me now, at Miami-Dade Junior College in 1966 on a IBM 1620 computer! It was used as a demo to show what a computer could do with a pen plotter. The plotter was not a device that could be use with computers in that day! It had to be RPQ(Request for Price Quote)to IBM to do the I/O hardwiring to make it work. We would have dignitaries from the Major Universities(i.e. Purdue, Columbia, etc.) come to Miami-Dade because we were one of the very first if not the first college to have a Computer Science curriculum(It was called EDP, Electronic Data Processing!). These Universities did not have a EDP degree program and they eventually copied Miami-Dade's program! In the computer lab where the college's computer was we had fun making Snoopy bigger and bigger to fool the person giving the demo! smile! Oh by the way! I did use Snoopy on a IBM 1130 on my job! We also did Business programming on the IBM 1130 in FORTRAN! COBOL was not invented yet! User:Dexhu 20:00 08 May 2007 (EDT)
  • Comment. Dude. --Kizor 01:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep The Snoopy calendar is part of computing folklore. It and other (more or less) savory pieces of ASCII art have graced the wall of many a computer room. If the information in the article is so unverifiable as to pose a problem, that's an argument for stubbifying the article, not deleting it. The topic itself is notable, albeit in the context of computer science. --Ssbohio 00:05, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Every comment made thus far amounts to original research. It doesn't matter if you made a Snoopy printout at your job 30 years ago. What matters is that this article has no reliable sources which demonstrate its encyclopedic merits, and I'm afraid that even if it did it still would be a better fit at Wikisource, not here. RFerreira 08:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. I realize that no appropriate reliable sources have been provided. But I think the original-research-type comments indicate that it probably is notable, just in need of more research to find the sources that prove it. Pinball22 16:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. We have the 1983 article, which was published in Datamation. I did some further digging and found coverage in The New Hacker's Dictionary, where Snoopy calendars are a proverbial hacker's (in the computer enthusiast sense) past-time. I can't provide a full literary citation right now seeing as how the local university has closed for the day, but I will be able to get access to their copy of the third edition later on. --Kizor 17:14, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Continuing on that, we now have multiple, published, reliable references. The responses that you try to trivialize seek to debunk the nominator's understandable but false assumption that this is without significance. --Kizor 00:35, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Historical interest or not, the full code does not belong into a Wikipedia article, and the rest is so short that it's probably better off in some other article. Sandstein 17:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete WP is not sourceforge. A better formatted article more encyclopedic in content and tone may be warrented though(without any code). Sidenote: Though in the 90s I was an engineer for awhile on one of the most used commercial fortran compilers and I never once heard of this. Russeasby 00:00, 10 May 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.