Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reason - C++ Library

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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 per WP:SNOW--JForget 00:49, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reason - C++ Library

Reason - C++ Library (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Put simply, the problems with this article are too numerous to just tag it for cleanup and leave it. Principally, it has WP:ADVERT and WP:COI issues. In addition, WP:NOT a repository for product documentation. KurtRaschke (talk) 01:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete - I noted on the talk page that the entire article was copied from the project's homepage. Dandaman32 (talk) 01:35, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete When I investigated the first appearance of this article, eventually tagging it for copyright issues, I was struck by the apparent lack of much independent coverage out there, which suggests it's very premature to say this topic has established notability. And it really does read like promotional material. --Sturm 01:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Should be tagged as a speedy, copyvio. - Milk's Favorite Cookie 21:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The entire text is copied becuase i wrote it. Is there a problem with this ?

I had no idea Wikipedia was so full of zealots. Seriously, how is the article ive just written any different to any of the other articles about Application framework's. Have you actually tried to verify the source ? Take a look at my email user name and email addres, and then have a look at [1] and compare them.

Try sending me an email ?

It would reallly assist me in improving the quality if you actually listed all of the problems which are "too numerous" so that i could actually fix it. Surely you should be encouraging contribution not squashing it in a rage of furious keystrokes.

I doubt wikipedia's reputation would be seriously harmed if you actually let the dust settle on a new article, for say more than 60 seconds before you flag it for deletion !

Gees, you guys are so nuts about this i cant even paste a comment here. Its taken me three tries just to get a word in. Take a chill pill... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Emerson clarke (talk • contribs) 01:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete - lack of reliable sources, no indication of notability. Even if the subject is notable, the article would have to be completely rewritten to be suitable for Wikipedia. --Snigbrook (talk) 01:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boost_library for an example of the same kind of content. If the article needs to be re-written then so be it, but thats no means for deletion. The whole point of wikipedia is to edit things is it not, you just have to give it a chance first though... im really not impressed with the attitudes being demonstrated here. --Emerson clarke (talk) 01:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

  • That article does need to be improved, but it does have at least one third-party reference. It has many more Google results: over 8000 for Boost compared to 8 for Reason, and although that it no always an accurate indication I cannot find much information about Reason at all other than from its own site, which is not enough for notability (or verifiability). --Snigbrook (talk) 02:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


I am going to address each of the above points in turn, and then remove the deletion notice on the article since i think that most of whats been mentioned here is either not relevant or out of date.

KurtRaschke I have removed all references to licensing other than the statements that it is an open source framework. So if you still feel there are WP:ADVERT issues then i would appreciate an explanation.

As for the WP:COI issue, i dont understand this. I happen to be the author of the framework, but that doesnt automatically mean there is a conflict of interest. I also happen to be the only person who knows enough about the philosophy and design behind it to reliably author a wikipidia article about it.

The article is most definately not WP:NOT product documentation. There are a few examples, as have been provided in similar articles about other frameworks like [Boost library]. The library is some 250,000 lines of code - there is simply no way you can argue that what ive written consitiutes documentation. Its a few quick examples demonstrating common programming problems and solutions, as is required to explain what Reason - C++ Library is about.

Dandaman32

Copying the article from the homepage does not represent a problem per say. The copyright issues have been explained and dealt with. The content is only a starting point for editing anyway, and that in itself is no cause for deletion.

I really would appreciate more constructive examples of why you feel its not suitable if indeed you do.

Sturm

What exactly consitutes independent coverage. I would suggest that you are simply not very familiary with the subject matter in question. C++ as a language has been around for 30 years or more, and in that time very few useful, simple, or well designed Application framework's have ever been written for it.

Reason is only a year old, yet it is still one of only two or three C++ libraries in existance. The others being Boost and QT. But Boost isnt really an application framework, its a template framework.

Reason appears prominantly on Google if you search for C++ frameworks. This serves to demonstrate that the domain is very poorly populated, and that should also be enough to establish notability. It represents a significant body of work and a significant achievement.

If you really think it sounds promotional, and more so than other articles about software libraries, frameworks, and platforms then please give me some examples to back up your opinion.

Snigbrook

What more reliable source do you want other than the author of the work. Please explain what criteria you expect this to be judged if your going to make such statements.

I dispute your ability or credibility to establish notability. Reason is extremely notable, if only for the fact that it exists and that it is one of very few examples of work in that space. I wonder under what rational you think that its not notable, or if you even bothered to look at the subject matter in the 120 seconds before you voted for deletion.

Again, i have no problem with re-writing the article. Thats part of the reason wikipedia is a wiki. But you have to leave it up there for a while to allow that to happen.

Compwhiz II

You may percieve the article to be written like a WP:NOT#GUIDE but it certainly isnt one. No more or less than the many hundreds of other technical articles on wikipedia detailings algorithms and software development techniques. As stated above, the article is far from a manual or a source of documentation. There are a few sparse examples, thats it.

There are absolutely ZERO WP:COPYVIO copyright violations on that page. I am the author, as stated here and in the talk page many times and i have already sent the necessary permissions to wikipedia.

Please can you people stop going off half cocked before youve actually read/researched the material and subject space.



Anyway... im going to remove the deletion notice from the page now. Feel free to respond to my comments, and please be considerate in giving examples and explaining your thoughts constructively so that i actually have a chance to make changes.

As editors i think you all probably need to evaluate wether you are working for or against the process, i really am shocked at how quickly and savagly you all jumped on this within minutes of its creation.

The article most definately has a right to be here, given the well established prior art of similar articles about similar subject matter - so if your going to make an argument against Reason - C++ Library it needs to be considdered with this in mind.

Thanks. --Emerson clarke (talk) 02:38, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


  • Delete. Even if this were notable (which I doubt), the article is unsalvageably promotional and POV-ridden. Actual encyclopedic coverage would need to start from scratch anyway. –Henning Makholm 02:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Henning Makholm

Umm, ok. How come all of the editors here seem to be unsalvageably against actually adding content to wikipedia. Surely deleting something is no where near as constructive as actually editing it. You are not actually making a point for deletion, merely editing.

I have no quarrel with the fact that it needs editing, i only just created it. Give me a break. But i find it hard to believe that every article on wikipedia which does not measure up editorially immediately gets deleted.

If thats the case, you may as well just go ahead and change this site to be called "delete if you dont create the perfect article the first time-apedia" dot org. I mean cmon !

I can edit in notepad as good as the next person, but i think this is just overkill. All you have provided is opinion, not actually a reason for deletion.

If you check the article you will see that i have been editing it heavily. But since i have other things to get done than camp on wikipedia trying to prevent deletion, im going to have to leave it for a few days and come back to it. I hope that common sense prevails.

In the meantime im going to go and work on my new idea for a global static HTML encyclopedia where no one gets to edit anything, rather its just got an FTP interface and users systematically upload and delete content. I think ill call it wikievolution.org.  :P

--Emerson clarke (talk) 03:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete How about we throw in the fact this article is a copy & paste from this site as well, and therefore a copyright violation? Wildthing61476 (talk) 04:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

For god sake, do you people actually read ? ... for the final time, there is no copyright infringement, i own the copyright and i have taken the necessary steps to attribute it to wikipedia.

I have also been extensively editing the content to make it less like documentation. It is certainly not advertising, im merely attemping to author something which describes the programming philosophy behind Reason and why it differs from other lbraries and frameworks. These are technical issues, perhaps too subtle for non programmers to understand.

Granted, it needs a lot of work... but as far as i can see most of the issues raised here related to the need to edit, not delete. Having read the deletions policy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_policy im struggling to see what your point is other than that which has already been addressed (copyright, and advertising) as far as i can see.

Deletion is a pretty extreme measure, not a power trip. I am working on the editorial... but thats a different issue no ?

--Emerson clarke (talk) 04:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete, no proof that the creator here has license to use the text that's a copyvio other than the assertion that he's the author, blatant CoI and unsalvageable PR. I think it could have been speedied on 2 of the three. Travellingcari (talk) 12:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment For the record, the article's creator has said he's emailed permissions-en@wikimedia.org regarding the copyright. I don't think that's the real issue here. The problem is that, as Emerson clarke admits, he is "only person who knows enough about the philosophy and design behind it to reliably author a wikipidia article about it"; which is strongly suggestive that reliable, secondary sources aren't out there, and that the topic is therefore non-notable. --Sturm 12:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Got it, I might have missed that in this oddly formatted AfD discussion. I agree on the other count Travellingcari (talk) 15:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Again, it seems to me that amongst editors there is some confusion as to the role and scope of proposed for deletion. Since copyright is not an issue, and notability is not in the deletion policy i think you have only raised issues worth of editorial improvement.

Further still, since notability explicitly states that it is not about "popularity" or "fame" the fact that you dont percieve there to be any reliable secondary sources out there is probably not as important as actually assesing what the article contains.

It does not contain any strong points of view, nor does it contain any statements which need to be verified by anyone else. It is simply a discussion of the desgin pinciples of a framework, written by one of the few people who understands then.

I am not presenting anything controversial, and i am not attempting to misguide or mislead any readers, so the notions of notability and "independence of subject" dont seem relevant, and are certainly not cause for deletion. --Emerson clarke (talk) 13:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

    • Please see Wikipedia:Deletion#Reasons_for_deletion: lack of notability is a reason for deletion. --Sturm 13:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
      • I understand that you feel that lack of notability is at hand, but you do not, and have not explained why. Other than the fact that i authored the content, and am aslo the only authority on the content. That in itself does not establish lack of notability does it ? ..try actually reading the content and just forgetting about who authored it for a moment. Is it really that objectionable or biased ?--Emerson clarke (talk) 14:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
        • I believe I have mentioned the relationship between notability and independent coverage already, and have pointed you towards the guidelines on notability. I've also mentioned more fundamental content policies over at the article talk page, including links to the relevant policy pages, in a note on basing articles around independent sources. Is there any more I need to add on this point? --Sturm 14:45, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) As you said : "and am aslo the only authority on the content." Ok, so are there ANY reliable sources to show this meets WP:N at all, any? Wildthing61476 (talk) 14:23, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Please can somone reading this remove this article from the proposed for deletions, as can be plainly seen from reading the points above most of the editors are still mistakenly assuming that there is some copyright issue when there isnt and the only legitimate concern is notability.

This process seems to be a straw man once something gets onto proposed for deletion. I suggest that it be left alone for a while and then see if it gets re-added to establish a little more objectivity, something which the editors here dont yet appear to be showing. --Emerson clarke (talk) 13:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete If the subject's creator admits that he is the only authority on the subject, I don't see how the article can be verifiable or the subject can be notable. Maxamegalon2000 15:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • What has this got to do with the author. Are you that prejudiced that you cannot abide by an article which is written by someone who has a connection with the material. This is not the only criteria for evaluation, you have made no mention that there is anything wrong with the actual content, only that i have been open and honest in stating that i am also the author of the framework. Surely if i can edit the article so that it is factual and impartial this should be enough. There are hundreds and thousdands of articles on wikipedia for which notability isnt even relevant. The article in question is one of them, all im doing is providing some background to something which not a lot of people know about. That doesnt mean it shouldnt be included, as i have stated before - wikipedia houses untold numbers of articles that are "obscure" and not "notable" to most people.--Emerson clarke (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete The author is missing the point: you wrote the software, you use it, you think it's important. Who else uses it? Who else thinks it's important? Who has reviewed it or written articles about it? That's what we mean by "notability" and "reliable source". If it's new software and doesn't have users yet, you should come back and create an article after it has become notable.Bm gub (talk) 17:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I think the editors are missing the point. I think its important becuase its representative. If there are only three or four C++ frameworks in the world, and if there is something of unusual or particular value in the philosophy presented then it is important by those virtues alone. Reason is a unique C++ framework becuase it makes writing software in C++ actually easy. This isn't a matter of opinion, its a matter of fact, and if you give the article a chance to be editorially improved rather than deleted i think you will see this is the case. Notability has nothing to do with "fame" and "popularity" according to the wikipedia definition. So you are plain wrong in stating that its about "who else thinks its important". Not many people think that a metaphone is important either, but its still here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphone. Wikipedia is not meant to be about popularity, its meant to be about information that is relevant to a particular subject or field. So i put it to you that Reason is particularly relevant to the field of C++ frameworks, how many others can you find on wikipedia ? For your information, there have been over 2000 downloads of reason since it was released a year ago with little or no publicity, and many hundreds of thousands of people have viewed the site and its associated examples. As with many things, it may not be notable to you as an editor, but it does not mean its not notable to the thousdands of developers out there who have been struggling with development in C++. Get some perspective. --Emerson clarke (talk) 17:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
      • I suggest that you read up on the site's Verifiability policy. You can say all you want how Reason is different, unique and important to C++ development and these would be good reasons to have the article; but unless there's more reputable sources outside of yourself (since you're the creator of Reason) who can back up your claims, there's no way we can verify any of what you're saying about the library. We need more than just grandiose claims about how this library is going to change the face of computing - we need someone authoritative and independent of this product's development to assure us that, yes, this is a worthwhile product that could warrant a Wikipedia article. NeoChaosX (talk, walk) 23:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
      • I havnt said anything at all about Reason being grandiose, but i do maintain that its notable. The reasons why its notable are clearly explained in the article, and if you take the care to keep up with the edits you will see that i have been adding references which support this assesement. I don't believe i have made any claims about reason which would require independent verification. Its not like im saying its the fastest, or its the best, or its the most portable. I have simply stated what it is, and why it is that way, and attempted to explain the similarities and differences between it and other libraries and langauge like it. The article is quite clearly a discussion about the philosophy and design principles behind the framework. As has been pointed out here already, there is nothing wrong with the author of a body of work writing a wikipedia article about it provided that it is objective. And in any case, verifiability is not cause for deletion according to the policy, but hey, jump on the band wagon, beat it down, and dont give anyone else a chance to contribute becuase we all know that makes the world a better place.--Emerson clarke (talk) 02:39, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I have completed a range of new edits, could everyone involved or who has made a comment here please take the time to review them and let me know if any progress is being made. I am assuming that you are neutral enough to actually care about progress being made, as opposed to resting on your already formed concensus opinion(s). I am still optimistic that there is a way i can author this article and still make it past the wikipedia standards. Thanks.--Emerson clarke (talk) 04:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete - very weak assertion of notability, not supported by any Reliable Sources. After checking seven or eight of the references noted in the article and finding no reference to "Reason" at all, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that there are no siginificant, verifiable, third-party sources at all. - fchd (talk) 07:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I have two issues with this deletion process, the first is that i dont think its working for the good of the article. As yet, not one single editor nor individual either here or on the comments page has actually tried to give constructive advice as to how the article may be improved. The second is that as stated on the guide to[2] This process does not work when editors merely echo the rationales of others, and do not double-check things for themselves. I wonder if notability would really be such an issue if it wasnt already listed here now that the page has been significantly changed.
    • You should realise that the references in the article are not to Reason, but to the general statements being made about software development, the C++ langauge, and other frameworks and libraries. I feel that you are just echoing the sentiments of other people in not assesing notability on merit, but rather by the popularity. In order to assess it on merit, and therefore have a true idea of notability, you need to look a little deeper.
    • I have argued that it is notable becuase of the points that i raised, and i have provided references which support those arguments. Performing simple searches for "reason c++ library" is only going to assess its popularity, and i have already stated that it does not have widespread adoption in the article. However, you will see that Reason appears 8th in the Google results for "C++ framework". With few of the other results being actual frameworks at all, GUI toolkits maybe, but not frameworks. This is the point that i am making about it being unique and therefore notable. Other searches which will return Reason in the results include "C++ hashmap", "C++ hashset", "C++ append array", "C++ xpath library", "C++ time interval", "C++ stringstream size". There are hundreds of things like this which represent organic searches for which Reason will be in the result set. Thats because they all represent common algorithms, datastructures, or difficulties programmers have with existing C++ frameworks and libraries.
    • Yes Reason is not as popular as you might like, but then all those results are generated from a single page of examples and it has not yet been widely publicised. I ask that you considder what you really mean by notable. According to the notability guide, the purpose of notability is to establish if the topic of an article is "worthy of notice" and is distinct from "fame" or "importance". All i ask is that you actually evaluate the topic (again, you need to look at what is being said about Reason, not just that i wrote it or that its a framework). If it were just another framework or library in the same style and the same genre as all the other GUI toolkits and utilities base around the C++ standard library idioms then it would not be notable and i wouldnt be bothering to try and get this point across.--Emerson clarke (talk) 15:13, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Still missing the point. The question is not "What sort of frameworks does C++ need", nor "Who should be using the Reason framework", nor yet "Is Reason a good framework", but simply is Reason well-known (i.e. notable) by people in the field and do third-party sources (i.e. not you) attest to this notability?. Bm gub (talk) 19:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
        • According to the guidelines, a topic is only presumed to be notable if its well-known. But notability isn't necessarily just about that, the very definition of the word implies a degree of merit should be considered. It may just be that it takes editors who are specifically knowledgeable about that field (as stated in the guidelines) to recognise that it may be notable. Not all topics can be judged by their online presence, and i think that is what notability has become defined by here, though i can understand the need for a coarse filter when managing something on this scale. Ill just have to wait until it has more publicly stated approval.--Emerson clarke (talk) 15:24, 10 February 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.