Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Schroedinbug

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 of the debate was KEEP. I personally know a little about hacker folklore, and I have heard of Schroedinbugs or Schrödinbugs. — JIP | Talk 14:17, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Schroedinbug

There's no evidence that it actually exists and wasn't just made up by someone. Kuciwalker 00:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. -- JJay 00:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Change to Keep per Zetawoof. -- JJay 09:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete Josh Parris#: 01:23, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as neologism. Ifnord 01:25, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, made up. Pavel Vozenilek 02:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• If it was made up by someone, it was made up before 1995, since that's the date of the FOLDOC entry for this concept. However, I haven't yet found any sources that aren't FOLDOC or Jargon File mirrors. Uncle G 04:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, though the definition originally in FOLDOC is indeed in jest, and describes a circumstance which cannot actually exist, the term is in common industry use as it shorthands an underlying truth to the nature of programming, and I've edited the article to (hopefully) more fully elucidate the use of the term, added a general example of usage, and provided an external link with a more concrete, real life example 146.115.56.101 08:31, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep: it may be a neologism, but it's a rather well-established neologism (18,500 google hits!). --Zetawoof 09:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Now try eliminating all of the Wikipedia, FOLDOC, and Jargon File mirrors. You'll find very little left. Counting Google hits is not research. Uncle G 17:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Lots of IT terms, serious or jokey, are neologisms, 'cos IT is a new industry. This one is well known enough to keep. I think the people voting to delete may not be proper nerds. (no offense meant). --Squiddy 10:00, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Or they may be applying our Wikipedia:No original research policy and looking for more than just the one single source for this concept. Uncle G 17:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
    • But you have to consider, Uncle G, that the word is taxonimic, though admittedly "shop talk". The related taxonomy, heisenbug, isn't up for deletion, arguably because heisenbugs are much more frequent, and (as some online usage reflects) people sometimes miscategorize schroedinbugs as heisenbugs. The word still labels a legit concept whose explanation requires encyclopedic depth. Alternative spellings "schrodinbug" and "shroedinbug" also get a dozen hits each (with the arguably more proper "schrödinbug" also in contention), suggesting this is more a concept which gets thrown over the cubicle wall, not simply discovered from FOLDOC, even if its intepretation should remain for our purposes a primary source. Of course, what FOLDOC describes is much more like a unicorn (a very rarified taxonomy), though, to paraphrase Tom Stoppard, everyone who knows what's really being talked about here is a horse with an arrow through its head. 146.115.56.101 08:11, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Established and widely used term. Delete, per Uncle G. «LordViD» 10:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Not really. Click on that link and notice from page 10 onwards it's a collection of URLs, without pages of content. Ifnord 14:38, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, well, what about the previous 9 pages? «LordViD» 15:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Ok. That's 90 references. Is that notable? Ifnord 15:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Actually, it isn't 90 references. Notice that (apart from the people using this word as their pseudonym) they are pretty much all copies of the same single article. Uncle G 17:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
          • After doing some research, I found this to be true. I'm changing my vote. «LordViD» 19:48, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
            • See note above regarding alternative spellings. Only a fair consideration for a word derived from an Austrian proper name 146.115.56.101 08:24, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep, fairly widely known among programmers. -- MisterHand 16:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Then where is it discussed outside of Wikipedia, FOLDOC, and the Jargon File? Uncle G 17:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Errr...I'm a programmer and I've never heard of it until now. Nor Bohr bug, Heisenbug, or Mandelbug. No vote. You can call me Al 20:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Neutral - I think this is more than just "made up", yet as a programmer myself, I must say I've never previously heard of it before. That said, I think it's clever, and I may consider using it in the future. --Cyde Weys _talk^contribs 20:53, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with Cyde. I haven't heard the word, but certainly know the phenomenon. Werdna648^T/_C\^@ 02:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Now voting Keep based on source provided (reference on an MSDN Blog). Werdna648^T/_C\^@ 02:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep searching for "schrödinbug" on google appears to turn up different pages. AKAF 13:27, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Smerge into Edge case and Redirect because a Schroedinbug is really a kind of edge case that affects everyone on a multiple-user system. Alksub 18:19, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Not really. An edge case has a known cause: "an extreme (maximum or minimum) operating parameter." The cause of a Schrödinbug is, like Schrödinger's cat, the result of a collapsing quantum vibration into a known, broken state. Kendrick7 08:37, 24 December 2005 (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.