Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/BackupHDDVD/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted 04:22, 5 May 2007.

[edit] BackupHDDVD

Self-nomination Currently GA. Covers the subject exhaustively if not completely, for that reason I think the unusually short length can be excused. Has plenty of references and has been stable for a while now. Noclip 04:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose for several reasons:
  • I personally don't believe the prose is very fluid or captivating. The FA admin can take this as they will, it's just my personal opinion after reading through the article.
    • Can you clarify this? Examples?
  • Some hail it as a victory for consumers' fair use rights, while others are expressing concerns

that it will be used for piracy. This is an example of...er...I can't really remember the term, but you claim that some people do something while others do something else without really providing any sources.

• • • Y Done
  • The referencing doesn't make very much sense to me. Almost half of all notes are references to some website's forum, one is a broken link [1] [2], and none of them follow the proper formatting for citation.
    • The YouTube reference is meant to demonstrate that it was taken down.
  • The section heading "AACS cracked?" seems like the title of an opinion editorial.
    • Y Done
  • When the release of the tool was publicized, several articles incorrectly claimed that AACS had been "cracked." Which articles? This is just another example of a number of claims made in this articles that are not backed up.
    • Y Done Examples added.
  • This link will not always report the article in its "latest news" section.
    • Looking for a mirror, but archive.org seems to be lagging a year behind.
  • So my best suggestion to you would be to consult other FAs and try to bring it up to the standard of those while finding more reputable sources to back up the stuff that's written in the article. Then take what you've written and subject it to a heavy copyedit to get things flowing correctly. Then get over to peer review and see what they can do to help. Hope this helps, JHMM13 06:43, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
    • • Thanks for responding to my suggestions. I'm sorry about linking the YouTube link. As you can see by the wording, I only meant to include one after remembering that the link references something within the article. I would like to continue working with you to help improve this article, but I'm afraid I don't have time to do it at the moment. For this reason I don't think it is fair for me to oppose this article because I can't match the effort you put into it and I'm changing my input to neutral. Thanks again and I appreciate the hard work you've put into the article. JHMM13 05:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

• "free, open source utility" may not necessarily be released as public domain. Could you check on the licence?
  • The SourceForge page (before it was removed) listed it as PD.
• presumably for the purpose -- presumably?
  • Presumed by the author. It could be used in a wide variety of ways, but the use it was created for was backup.
• Too many short paragraphs. Could be merged into a larger section
  • Y Done
• There's just one line to its working. This needs to be expanded.
  • Y Done

=Nichalp «Talk»= 07:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Some of my points are still not fixed. Here are some more comments.

1. Licence is still PD in the infobox

• • For the second time the official project on SourceForge listed it as public domain. What do you suggest the license be changed to?

1. initial version external link is bad style. Use Wikipedia:Footnote3 to avoid mixing with references.

• • Y Done It was a duplicate also, removed

1. =Background= --> =Working=

• • This has less to do with the criteria than your personal preference.

1. Size of the program?

• • Y Done

1. January 24th --> wikify as January 24

• • Y Done

1. presumably is too vague to be used here.

• • Y Done Reworded

=Nichalp «Talk»= 04:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• Support I like it! It's a pleasure to read and very informative. While not PERFECT, certainly better than other artcles that have recieved FA status. Sue Rangell^{[citation needed]} 02:41, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Sue, you really need to familiarise yourself with the Featured article criteria. Featured Articles ought to be damn near perfect. Maybe if you've seen others which aren't, they were old FAs needing review (WP:FAR) or had been vandalised. Either way, or whatever the reason, please focus on the article in question and how/whether it meets the criteria. --kingboyk 22:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

• The last statement of the previous reviewer appears to be irrelevant to the criteria. Oppose because the prose is awkward and faulty throughout. Here are just a few examples.
  • "does not violate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act nor ..." No, "neither ... nor", otherwise don't use "nor".
  • "to successfully decrypt a disc's contents" - ungainly on a number of counts.
  • "a task with which neither BackupHDDVD nor its author provide any assistance" - "With"?
    • This is a perfectly valid way of expressing "a task which neither BackupHDDVD nor its author provide any assistance with."
  • "For several weeks after the utility's release no claims of having been able to successfully use the author's key extraction technique were made" - Avoid possessive apostrophe for unconscious items. Comma almost compulsory after "release". It's another ungainly sentence.
  • "However, in mid-January, a key was published and several others quickly discovered a method" - Several other what? Tony 08:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Y Done Addressed general concern of awkward prose, fixed specific examples. Noclip 18:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

• Neutral. A bit short, no free images, too technical – Gurch 21:59, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Further to my object, if you have indeed "addressed general concern of awkward prose" as you claim, why is it easy to find at random problems throughout the article? Here are exampels.
  • "BackupHDDVD is a small open source utility available in both command line and GUI-based versions which aids in the decryption of AACS copy-protected commercial HD DVD discs, intended to be used for backing up a film the user has purchased." It's not a small and open source utility, so you must use a hyphen ("open-source"), whether in AmEng, BrEng or AusEng. It would be kinder to our readers to split such a long, complicated sentence as an entree to the topic. I'd be turned off, myself.
    • Y Done
  • It's not a deal-breaker, but next time go easy on "which".
  • "This video has since been removed at the request of Warner Brothers Entertainment, citing copyrighted material being used without permission." The "citing ..." clause is unclear, although I guess we can work out the intended meaning. Better as the more direct ", on the basis that it breaches copyright", don't you think?
    • Y Done
  • "as to how keys necessary for a successful decryption "—I think (am I right?) that "as to how the keys that were necessary ..." is clearer.
    • Y Done
  • The hated "in order to" is still in evidence. Tell me, why not remove the two redundant words? What's the attraction of this hedghog phrase? ("held in memory, to facilitate playback").
    • Y Done
  • "could be used to obtain title keys"—"THE title keys"; let's stampt out this telegram language that scientists and technical people are increasingly falling prey to.
    • This has nothing to do with "telegram language." Adding "the" here would be inappropriate as there is a unique set of title keys for each disc. Noclip 14:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Stubby paragraphs. Tony 12:33, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

• The stubs remain; the "History" section is inadequate; insufficient attempt to improve the prose aside from fixing the specific instances I've raised above. "In mid-January of 2007"—Why is "2007" linked? Have a look at the year page; it's so relevant. Tony 00:24, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you should take a look at how far the article has come from the GA version, or even the original nominated version before claiming that only specific issues have been addressed. Noclip 16:08, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
• If the program runs in command line and is released into the public domain, could we get a free image of it running in command line as opposed to a non-free image of it running in the Windows XP GUI? --Iamunknown 08:17, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Possibly, but such a screenshot would most likely include AACS keys (which are copyrighted). Noclip 16:43, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
    • I apologise, I'm unfamiliar with the acronym AACS. What does it refer to? --Iamunknown 19:39, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Advanced Access Content System, it's a form of digital rights management. Noclip 22:13, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
    • It seems like an image that did not have the AACS codes could still be created, depending upon what information would display at boot up or at the entry of /help or other parameters. Would you make such an image? --Iamunknown 03:28, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Y Done Noclip 04:31, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
        • Cool, I'd recommend using it and not the other image, then the article is all free. --Iamunknown 04:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
          • At first I was considering it but felt that the GUI image illustrated the subject of the article well enough to warrant its keeping. I've removed it for now. Noclip 04:56, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
            • Okay. I also have two textual suggestions after a cursory glance:
              1. In the lead bypass the disambiguation page for the link "handle" by linking to User (computing) (but keep the displayed text as "handle").
              2. Could a source be found for the sentence "According to creator of BackupHDDVD, he first set out to circumvent AACS (...) unless an HDCP compliant chain of video hardware was present."?
            • I'll try to look later, but what I'm mostly interested with (image and copyright issues) is, currently, resolved. --Iamunknown 05:03, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment.

• these keys are easily be revoked by AACS LA - needs correcting, I'm not sure what it's meant to say.
• to each licensed device manufacturer - are these manufacturers of licensed devices, or device manufacturers who are licensed? Needs a hyphen to clarify.
• Are you sure Muslix64 is male?
• Any references for the "Limitations" section? Arguably a limitation... - who argued it?
• Sources need a bit of work; some are lacking publisher or author information.

• I agree that it is a little daunting to someone unfamiliar with the topic, due to the technical nature and large number of abbreviations. I'm not sure how much of that can be avoided though, due to to the subject matter of the article. Trebor 12:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Y Done Noclip 15:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Some of the text, such as fifth paragraph of the "History" section, is uncited. An inline citation at the end of every paragraph will correct this. Cla68 02:22, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Y Done Noclip 23:06, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
    • There still isn't a citation at the end of every paragraph. Cla68 02:51, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
• Done? That's funny, because the History section still comprises stubby paragraphs. Devoting a whole section to "Future" is questionable, given WP's policy on that. And it's one sentence alone? Remove the last word as redundant. I find this article lacking comprehensiveness (for example, "Features and limitations" comprises two stubs—isn't there any more to say on such a complex tool?). It's thin, the pic at the top is pretty boring, and overall I think it fails to represent WP's best work, as required. The writing is subprofessional (I can easily pick out embarrassments such as "and is purported to run faster that its Java counterparts"—"purport" is the wrong word; look it up. I can't see this on the main page, frankly. Tony 00:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • The contents of "Future" has been moved into "History." As for the "features and limitations" section, I wasn't aware of your intimate knowledge of this application giving you the ability to judge the amount of prose needed to properly describe its complexity. In fact, it takes a key and passes it to a ready made AES library, then dumps the result to a location specified by the user, there's not that much to it. I am working on fixing some of the "embarrassments." Noclip 03:16, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose:
• "The software, written by an anonymous programmer using the handle Muslix64, is distributed in a manner which the author feels neither violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act nor infringes on any copyrights." How do we know what the author feels, if he or she is anonymous?
  • Because the author's post about the utility says that?
• "Users wanting to use the software to decrypt a protected disc's contents would need to have obtained either a disc's volume or title key separately, a task which BackupHDDVD's author provides no assistance with." Of course the author doesn't provide any assistance, only the program would.
  • The author could have provided assistance by way of e-mail or private message, or included keys with the program but didn't. The program doesn't provide any assistance either.
• "According to the creator of BackupHDDVD, (s)he first set out to circumvent AACS to bypass a restriction in software HD DVD players [...]" Could we use "he or she" or "she or he" instead of "(s)he"?
  • Sure, I just didn't want to use "she or he" twice in one paragraph.
• "Several unofficial versions of BackupHDDVD have been released, including ones with a GUI and the ability to locate keys on the internet or scan for them in memory automatically." What does "official" mean in this context? Does that only mean that it hails from the author of the original version? If so, why not write that?
  • Clarified
• Footnotes 6, 12 18 do not cite Reliable sources. 6: The fact that youtube has taken down a video, which was once at that address doesn't prove anything. Besides, if no sources mention this, we may have to ask whether the fact is relevant at all. 12 and 16: blogs and internet forums are not reliable sources
  • YouTube certainly isn't a reliable source and that reference can be removed, but the "unreliable" forum post happens to be made by an individual who understands AACS about as intimately as AACS LA itself, so you might want to let that one slide.
• The "Future" and "See also" sections should be removed. The former could easily be integrated into some other section. As to the latter: if a term ain't worth mentioning in the article, then it ain't worth being linked, besides some of those are mentioned in the article, so why not links them from there?
  • Y Done
• I agree with the statements from the previous reviewers: this article needs serious copyediting. It is especially needs to use less technical jargon in order to be able to be understood by more people, especially the "background" section.--Carabinieri 02:26, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
  • The makers of AACS relied a lot on security through obscurity so a less technical "Background" section would in all likelyhood be next to impossible. Noclip 03:16, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.