Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Tranche (software)

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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 tentatively delete. Simply put, notability was not established. Note that I discounted the Nature source since the person citing this subscription-only publication failed to establish what exactly was written there. Feel free to provide the pertinent excerpt on the talkpage for reconsideration (although it seems unlikely; if Nature termed it the best of its class, surely there'd be ample mention elsewhere. El_C 19:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tranche (software)

Tranche (software) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

I tagged this for speedy deletion for notability, which was contested so I've brought it here. This is niche software apparently in development about which i know nothing and a Google search for "Tranche software" brings up very little. The talk page contains what may be useful background. --ROGER TALK 10:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

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  • Google "Tranche". We're the 6th hit and rising. Tranche is one of the first big efforts for actually sharing large data sets. It did start in a relatively obscure field; however, it has had massive adoption and currently hosts several of the NCI and NIH sponsored data sets. Check out the user docs for examples at http://tranche.proteomecommons.org. Please realize that Tranche has been around for about a year. It is actively developed, but is far from "apparently in development". Go launch the Tranche tool http://tranche.proteomecommons.org. You'll see that it is far more than vaporware. I clearly think that it is fair to keep a wikipedia page on Tranche. It is real, and proper citations exist for it. If you disagree, I'll ask others to post here. I bet I can get several dozen fairly quickly.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.27.110 (talk • contribs)
  • Comment. "If you disagree, I'll ask others to post here. I bet I can get several dozen fairly quickly." This is meatpuppeting, and is a bannable offence. Further, the major issue here is notability. If you want to keep the article without violating policy, the best thing you can do is add references to where this software is discussed or reviewed by third-party reliable sources, which I see there is already one there, maybe. Someguy1221 20:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Asking others to post to say "keep", is puppetting. Asking others who may know of references to make positive contributions to the encyclopedia is not. DGG (talk) 22:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: Proteomics is a relatively new field largely defined by the software advancements made in the field. (See SEQUEST). The development of new software directly affects the advances in the field, and hence the history of the field is by large the history of its software. As the gentlement who responded to the last comment pointed out, there are references at the bottom. I just added a link to slides hosted on nih.gov, and there is an entry from the ASMS site. The software is notable as a bridge between researchers and large Proteomic software projects. As a testimony to the software's significance, beyond the federal funding, many research institutions host servers for the core Tranche network, which you can browse on the Google map of Tranche servers. I hope to see even more Proteomic (or, more broadly, Bioinformatic) tools in Wikipedia. Looking at the external link section of the Proteomics page will show the significance of the software tools to the science. --Bryan (hrunting5)
  • Comment: Sorry if the posts appeared to be meatpuppeting. Several people are excited about the project, and the "quick delete" on Wikipedia surprised us. Please don't take offense, I'll advise the folks affiliated with Tranche to carefully consider your warning. I think most people understand that there is no voting on Wikipedia. Jayson Andrew Falkner 01:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak delete. I don't think notability has been established. The sources lead back to proteomic and are scarcely independent. Against that, the article is now in better shape and looks more encyclopedic. --ROGER TALK 06:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Despite the brouhaha, notability has not been established. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Notability is not a particularly high barrier (which is all the more reason for not lowering it) and, if this software is as good as everyone claims, it will soon attract copious comment from reliable independent sources. Deleting the article is of course no bar to recreating it once the specific objections have been addressed. --ROGER TALK 09:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Seems to meet the notability criterion based on the comments above and the references supplied. Roger--please note that CSD:A7 only applies to articles about people, groups, companies and web content; it is not a catch-all notability clause. And even for these cases, it can only be used when notability is not even asserted, not just when it appears non-notable. Owen× ☎ 14:01, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for the pointer. In this case, it didn't seem that notability had been asserted when I CSD'd it and also it seemed to me to be web content. (The guideline says that any content which is distributed solely on the internet is considered ... as web content.) Also, absent independent reviews, Tranche still doesn't appear to meet any of the three web notability criteria.--ROGER TALK 15:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Good point. This case is certainly not a clear-cut one. Owen× ☎ 15:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
I think you're cherry-picking your argument... WP:WEB talks about web *content* and says nothing about web programs or web software (which is a deficiency in that guideline)... i would argue that in the context and examples in WP:WEB, 'content' refers only to data and information, period, it says nothing about operational software... my personal belief is that glib and libertine interpretations of these so-called 'notable' guidelines by non-experts in the field have led to the mass destruction of many valuable Wiki pages about software which will never be recovered... let me quote the WP:GD here:
first do the necessary homework and look for sources yourself, and invite discussion on the talk page by using the notability template, if you are disputing the notability of an article's subject. The fact that you haven't heard of something, or don't personally consider it worthy, are not criteria for deletion. You must look for, and demonstrate that you couldn't find, any independent sources of sufficient depth.
using speedy delete is an end-run around this bit of tolerance and wisdom... my 2 cents, for what it's worth - 69.235.255.45 12:13, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Replying in your paragraph order:
  1. WP:WEB talks about any web content. The any must therefore include download content. Plus, footnote #1 makes it clear that content includes product, it lists types. No cherry-picking there.
  2. See Talk:Tranche (software) I did do the homework and found no independent sources to conform notability. If I'd found one, I'd have included it and removed the tags myself. I have no axe to grind on this either way.
--ROGER TALK 21:23, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
you're cherry-picking because you choose to see this important program as web content only and as downloadable content only! it's also an operational software program used by researchers around the world to distribute, share, and backup important research data using the internet much the same way as Wikipedia does! it's not just another bit of web content, it's not just another product, it's not just another computer program... it is kin to Wikipedia itself! - 76.195.146.40 18:35, 28 July 2007 (UTC) (i discovers the triple-quote! thanks, Rog =)
Comment: "Kin to Wikipedia itself" isn't really a valid argument against deletion, in my opinion. There's plenty of software out there that shares some of the ideals of the Wikipedia project, and which aren't necessarily notable enough to feature an article in Wikipedia. (I'd say that anything open-source falls into this category.) It's not a persuasive argument. Best, Iknowyourider (t c) 19:10, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Note about cherry-picking The web-content stuff is irrelevant to this current discussion: it's one of the technical grounds for qualifying for Speedy Deletion. Which this isn't. --ROGER TALK 19:35, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
hey wait a second you're the one who keeps bringing up web content non-notability as grounds for deletion... see your comment at the top of page:
  • Absent independent reviews, Tranche still doesn't appear to meet any of the three web notability criteria. --[[User:Roger Davies]|Roger] 18:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
looks like a web content argument to me... that link points off to the guideline for web content notability criteria... again i say, Tranche is more than mere web content, it's an internet program - 76.195.146.40 12:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Relisted to determine a clear consensus. -- John Reaves 00:46, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
  • comment I have always assumed "web content" meant content distributed over the web, and was included in speedy as a criterion because so much of what was distributed only over the web was unquestionably not worth a WP article, and even a non-expert could decide. It doesn't include other computer software, most of which needs a little more careful and expert discussion than a speedy. DGG (talk) 01:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment It's an interesting one, isn't it? I brought it up here for review. Your 2¢/2p there would be appreciated. --ROGER TALK 05:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
DGG, please see my comment to Roger above about cherry-picking... if what you're talking about is just web content, i.e., just data, just information, then sure, a non-expert could decide... but Tranche is not just web content, it is an operational software system for doing important work on the web, just as Wikipedia is/does... in that case i think you need an expert, or at least you non-experts have proven to me that an expert is required to judge... an analogy: what happens if in the future we decide any "information" that is "common knowledge" among a populace is non-notable and non-encyclopedic because, well, everybody just knows it, learns it in school or from tv... then does that mean we should delete "The Battle of Gettysburg" or "The Challenger Disaster" or "Hurricane Katrina" from the Wikipedia just because it meets the criteria of being "common knowledge"??? but this reflects your attitude... oh, it's web content, it's distributed over the web, therefore it falls in the same category as any old blog crap... this is software, this is a program, this is a running system, it does something... and in this case it does something very important, related to cutting-edge biological research...
and it really gets me when you editors misinterpret guidelines for your own agendas... like the concept of "original research"... i read that to mean any old crap that any old person on the planet makes up... it is not intended to apply to recognized researchers in a field doing cutting-edge research!
this would not be important at all, or as galling to me, except for the fact that speedy deletion is swift and final... and goes against the spirit of Wikipedia when applied willy-nilly to articles about which the deleter knows nothing...
here's an excerpt from the WP:IAR article "Wikipedia:What 'Ignore all rules' means":
If you do what seems sensible, you will usually be right, and if not, mistakes are easy to correct. That's a good thing, because we all make them. No matter how bad the mistake, the old version remains in the revision history and can be painlessly restored. If we come to a disagreement as a result, we'll talk about it thoughtfully and politely, and we'll figure out what to do. (emphases mine)
well... my understanding is, if you do speedy delete there is no recourse, there is no 'old version', there is no revision history, there is no discussion, there is no weighing, there is nothing to figure out, there is no consensus, there is nothing to restore or look back on or check or have a look-see to see what could make it better or turn it into a stub or nothing... you have hammered it out of existence...
i think i saw something in one of the 'guidelines' that says articles like this should be turned into stubs, with requests for fixing and enhancing, rather than delete out-of-hand just because you feel like it... i guess we'll never know how many valid articles have been deleted off of Wikipedia just for these reasons
my two cents - 76.195.146.40 00:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment: This discussion is long enough already, so I'm going to keep my replies terse. Not intended to be curt; just concise.
  • Your point about the (in)applicability of speedy deletion isn't really relevant, as the article isn't currently up for speedy deletion. I believe we should focus on the current AfD process.
  • Speedy deletion is pretty swift, but it is not final. Although things like page history are hidden, an administrator can recover the article text. See also WP:USERFY and WP:DRV.
  • I think everyone would appreciate it if comments like "...rather than delete out-of-hand because you feel like it" or statements that others "misinterpret guidelines for their own agendas" were kept out of the discussion. That's not constructive. Assume good faith.
  • Not everyone is an expert in computer science, bioinformatics, and proteomics. That doesn't mean you get to talk down to them.
I understand that you care about this topic, dude, but I think you might find it helpful to chill out a little. If you have more reliable sources regarding Tranche that you can provide, and that will help assert its notability, please do so. Cheers, Iknowyourider (t c) 08:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
you're right, i agree... trying to chill... but i would defend any article of scientific interest the same way, regardless of my expertise... it's not talking down to someone if you point out they are acting out of their depths... i see the same discussions about notability in art here on Wikipedia... i'm just more squeeky wheel then eloquent editor at this point, and i apologize if i verbally berserk... i didn't know about hidden recover and WP:USERFY and WP:DRV... thank you for your kind direction... i just hate losing any information of value...
oh, and i keep bringing up web content, not speedy delete, because that's one of the reasons given as to why this article should be deleted... see Roger's comment at the top of this page about web notability criteria... the topic of speedy delete i'm harping on in whatever forum i find... but here i'll limit my comments from now on, it's just i've chosen this as battleground 1... thanks again - 76.195.146.40 12:24, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm still not sure why speedy deletion offends you so much. Have you read WP:CSD? It's pretty narrow in scope and really only applies to things that obviously shouldn't be in an encyclopedia. You also might want to watch Special:Newpages for a while for some insight into why we need speedy deletion. Cheers, Iknowyourider (t c) 16:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
comment and i apologize to any and all who find my remarks offensive - 76.195.146.40 12:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
Question Do you think that the sources amount the guideline's requirement of significant coverage?
Yes. Significant is difficult to define in this context, but due to the fact that both of these articles are from highly reputable sources and that they effectively describe this software as the best in its class, I feel that they mean the article is warranted. I also assume there is more coverage I have not looked at... I only looked at the first two pages of google results (for tranche proteomics) to find these articles, and there were many, many pages. JulesH 19:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Disagree that it's significant coverage. The Proteomics Journal is just a general roundup of available software, describing Tranche as "one approach" to "an existing need" and "the largest public repository etc". By way, "tranche proteomics" only gets seven Ghits with me (two of which are their YouTube promo). --ROGER TALK 04:17, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Well referenced, multiple external links. Though not necessarily notable, it is verifiable. J-stan Talk 03:01, 31 July 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.