User:Caudax/Talk Accumulate and fire

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The following is a copy of the accumulate and fire discussion page prior to the AfD made for historical purposes and to aid in seeing the extent of the argument applied in the AfD.

Who uses this term? I've never heard of it. I don't even understand it. --anon

I concur. I've just performed a number of searches, and after all wikipedia mirrors are filtered out, there is only one site that uses this term in the way the article suggests: http://perldesignpatterns.com/wiki.cgi?AccumulateAndFire . It is my understanding that wikipedia isn't suppose to document neologisms. I'll wait a day or two for someone to respond here, if no one does, I'll place this up for Wikipedia:Votes for Deletion. func(talk) 02:41, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My understanding is that this is an article about a common practice in programming, which is named tentatively "accumulate and fire" due to the absence of a suitable term. Unless you thinkg the article is false, there is no need to delete. -- Taku 05:05, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
OK, I'll go along with that reasoning, although I would think this would be better as a section of the global variable article, (which still has lots of room to grow). func(talk) 05:20, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Petri net?

Why "See also: Petri net"? There's nothing there relevant to this pattern, and nothing on this page relevant to Petri nets. Is this a case of someone reading something interesting in a journal and then forgetting to follow up on it?

PJTraill 21:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC) I've removed this - if anyone has a good reason for adding it, let them do so and indicate why!

[edit] Protologism/Neologism/Notability

Someone flagged this as non-notable for being a neologism, even though it is more accurately described as a protologism (which, itself, seems to satisfy its own definition). The first problem is that this person who flagged the article (User:Piet_Delport) either didn't read the above discussion or otherwise hadn't bothered to explain his rationale in light of opposing viewpoints. (If there isn't an essay out there already, someone should make an essay about explaining your actions when others disagree. If there is one such essay, feel free to remove these parentheses and their enclosed content and turn "explain his rationale in light of opposing viewpoints" into a hyperlink linking to such a pertinent essay.) That said, the chief problem is that this article isn't here to discuss a "hot word" or "hot phrase" in hopes of making it more popular, etc., etc. Instead, the article exists to describe one form of problematic programming, with this title given tentatively as a reference to the practice, seeing as one "accumulates global variables" and then "fires off (calls) subroutines using them." Thus, the title isn't intended as a catchphrase, etc. but rather simply as a descriptor of such problematic programming. This leads me to believe that notability is being improperly applied, but, moreover, I am going to assume good faith and ignore all rules, seeing as this does seem to have merit with respect to programming. The real problem with the article is that it needs to be expanded, so I'm adding Template:compu-prog-stub. -Caudax 13:58, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure where you get the idea that i tagged it "for being a neologism".
The rationale is clearly explained in the policy linked to by the tag: article topics need significant coverage by reliable, independent sources to be included in Wikipedia. (The "opposing viewpoints" aren't: no one has made any argument of notability. Only Taku made an argument in favor of the article, on the basis that it documents "a common practice in programming [absent] a suitable term", but this suggests inappropriate original research, if anything.)
The way to remove the tag is to demonstrate how it meets the above-mentioned notability criteria; failing that, the deletion process should continue. —Piet Delport 2007-08-12 01:27
The following in a nutshell: Discussing and/or demanding notability and original research at this point here isn't really helping wikipedia and/or this article. If we're busy with wikipedia and/or this article anyway, lets do something that does! Yay!
*Sigh*, firstly, to provide some reasoning to sate your apparent need (See below regarding necessity.) for a notability requirement, I'll give one. Notability is not intrinsic to naming guidelines; it is intrinsic to the practice at hand. I am certain that the notion of accumulating global variables and manipulating them via called subroutines is not sufficiently rare to be considered non-notable.
Moreover, notability and no original research is meant to prevent Wikipedia from being deluged by worthless content or otherwise pov-pushing content. My point is that the article can be developed into a worthwhile article, if it doesn't get destroyed by your notability deletion request first. Regarding the applicability of notability and original research, there are two points I would like to leverage here: firstly, notability is a guideline, not a rule. Secondly, I refer back to ignore all rules, where rules are ignored for the sake of productivity. What you are doing is demanding notability (which does not warrant stringent enforcement, being but a guideline) and original research standards on an as-of-yet fledgling article (where the proper details which might truly warrant sourcing are not even there yet and where the current statements for which sources could be demanded might be removed anyway, source or no source). In essence, what you are doing here hampers progress on the article by superimposing requests that are more properly along finalization than creation, which is somewhat like asking a carpenter to coat his wood with waterproofing substance while he is still cutting, etc. the same piece of wood, and by demanding a requirement (which, once again, is not needed and could still be ignored if it were a rule) in the face of deletion (and by deleting the stub tag when restoring the notability flag). None of these are helping. At all. If you insist that rules are rules (even when they aren't), I will insist to ignore them.
Lastly, to discuss the notion of why I assumed the problem lay with neologism status, basically, seeing as accumulating global variables and subroutines dependant on them seems like a rather common amateuristic way to create monolithic programs, I determined (possibly inappropriately) the issue or notability to lie not with the presence of the phenomenon but rather with the naming convention, which is also more likely due to the increasing use of google as a barometer for notability. If, however, you feel the point needs to be pushed further, feel free to refer back to the above. -Caudax 03:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate your civility and concern, but:
  • Rarity and notability are independent things; the prevalence of the practice (or not) does not make it notable (or not).
  • The tag is not a deletion request. Even though my own background research leads me to believe that the article subject has made no meaningful impact outside of the book it was published in, i put up the tag instead of a deletion request so that others might point out what i missed.
  • There is no meaningful difference between "rule", or "policy", or "guideline" here: they all reflect consensus, and ignoring them always requires justification corresponding to the magnitude of the exception.
  • Establishing notability is most definitely part of article creation, not finalization: it determines whether the article should be created to begin with (independent of any content).
In other words, the next (indeed, first) step in helping Wikipedia and this article is to demonstrate its notability. Failing that, any useful (verifiable) content may be worked into other articles. —Piet Delport 2007-08-19 05:02
I appreciate your likewise civility and concern and would like to respond with further points of my own:
  • I was under the impression that WP:NOTABLE's nutshell essentially declared that rarity is the standard by which notability is measured.
  • The tag essentially indicates that this is on the route to the deletion request, however.
  • This warrants a two part response. First, there is a significant difference between rules and guidelines. Rules are "enforced," in absence of IAR, but guidelines are only recommended to be upheld. Furthermore, a rule is essentially held in nigh-unanimous consent, whereas the notability criterion has been the subject of much debate. (Also see here and here.) Although, as an exception to the above, the ex-rule that wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors has been controversial as well. Consequently, it is not so much a "wikipedian" unified standard as much as it is a standard upheld by a certain group of wikipedians. A guideline is followed only so much as it appears applicable. Secondly, the justification has been my above nutshell. Essentially, this article can be eventually developed into an informative article, once it has received sufficient expansion. Beyond that, "ignore all rules" essentially allows for ignoring rules when it would be constructive to do so. In this case, following through on notability this early would make this a candidate for deletion, which is a destructive act, as far as I see. This article can be very well developed into a perfectly legitimate article in its own right, and deleting it will not permit it to do so. This point is also carried further in the next point raised.
  • Maintaining notability as a requirement that must be immediately responded to does not offer the chance to appropriately develop the article over the long term. In essence, it stifles potential growth. Furthermore, if your criterion for notability is sourcing, I already commented above regarding the impermanence of these statements needing sourcing, given the fledgling state of the article. This also brings me to your comment for deleting the stub tag.
  • On your talk page, you commented that you intentionally removed the stub tag because the article is on the big side for a stub. As per WP:STUB, "an article too short to provide more than rudimentary information about a subject should be marked as a stub." I don't find this sufficiently in-depth to be appropriate for Wikipedia. It gives a short definition with terse reasoning. What is needed is a more rational, in-depth explanation behind the reasons for this article. I reiterate that this is a "fledgling article" and therefore is a qualifier for the stub template.
Thank you for responding, and I hope this clears matters up. -Caudax 08:47, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I have re-included the Template:compu-prog-stub for now. I realize that I am using it as a header rather than a footer; however, I have been around long enough to have seen stubs in both locations, and I prefer placing them in the header. If you wish to put it in the footer, however, I have no objections; after all, it's an aesthetic choice. If you wish to remove the template, as noted above, I do have objections.
I would also like to reiterate (the above nutshell) that time spent on this discussion would have been better spent on simply improving the article. This discussion has already spanned many times the length of the article itself, and I myself feel that the time I spent would be better spent on improving the article itself, even though I cannot make impromptu expansions to the article as I can to this discussion. -Caudax 01:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)