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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Bbadger (talk | contribs) at 16:51, 7 September 2007 (→‎Sport (software)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Sport (software)

Sport (software) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

Delete was tagged speedy for copyvio but on discussion page the article's author claims to be the software developer himself. Anyway, no notability shown. Carlossuarez46 00:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*DELETE No notability asserted. Not verifiable. Not one single solitary reliable source. All original research from the designer of the subject software. Blatant conflict of interest. OfficeGirl 00:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Please do not delete: Well, this is all rather hard to follow. I have just come back from the European Smalltalk User Group meeting where I gave a talk about Sport. Many people are interested in Sport. I had put together some notes on the OpenSkills wiki but it seemed to me that the Wikipedia would be a better place to record what sport *is* and use the OpenSkills wiki and the sourceforge page to manage the development of Sport. Anyway, no sooner do I make the Wikipedia page than I get all this fuss. What do I need to do to satisfy you guys? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.86.102.62 (talk) 06:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please do not delete: Further thoughts ... I don't understand what you guys mean by "notability", but taking the English I can tell you that Sport is notable for having unnified the Smalltalk community. There are now more Smalltalk libraries that work across (almost) all dialects than ever before. As for the "Blatant Advertising", well it is every bit as much advertising for every other software documented in Wikipedia, so fair cop on those grounds - but then don't you need to delete all articles on software? FWIW, Sport is a FOSS projects if that helps. Ah, yes. I need to work out your "Signature" code. Informally I can tell you that I am Bruce Badger and you'll note that I am logged in as I type. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbadger (talk • contribs)
REPLY Mr. Badger, welcome to Wikipedia and I hope you enjoy your experience participating in the encyclopedic process. One of the biggest problems with the Sport article is that all we have to go on is what you are personally telling us. As the creator of the software there is no way anyone could expect or require you to have a neutral point of view when writing about your subject. But it is absolutely important that all Wikipedia articles are presented neutrally. Also, even though you are undoubtedly an expert on the subject, Wikipedia can't just "take your word for it" on anything that you might be able to inform us about. That doesn't mean that we doubt your knowledge-- it's just the difference between an encyclopedia and a magazine. A magazine can publish Original research and can move very quickly to publish new information. An encyclopedia has to wait until other secondary sources have given the subject some coverage first, and then it reports what happened in the secondary sources.OfficeGirl 14:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep (that seems to be the word by convention - I hope that's OK). Thank you for the reply. I guess the thing that surprised me most was the speed with which the article was marked for deletion. I had only just started writing the thing and wham marked for delete. I do understand the points you are making (I think). As with many FOSS projects while many people are interested, few people get involved. In the case of Sport, you will see that I have included links to the ESUG conference where sport was discussed (the official notes from the meeting are not out yet, but I can link to them when they are), I have linked to the SourceForge project where code contributed by many people is held, and I have linked to the OpenSkills wiki where I started putting together the documentation before thinking the Wikipedia would be a place since Sport is widely used. For an idea of how widely consider the list of supported dialects (on the Sport page). I have indeed written two of those, but all the other were written by other people - they are listed on the OpenSkills wiki page. You can see Sport being discussed on comp.lang.smalltalk and I think that supports the point that Sport is not a Bruce Badger only thing - in fact Sport is a key part of a wider programme within the Smalltalk community to re-awaken the ANSI process for Smalltalk. So, beyond all this what can I do to keep this page on Wikipedia? (I still don't get the signing thing, but I (Bruce Badger) am logged in as I type this). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bbadger (talk • contribs) 16:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
REPLY I have some suggestions for you on your talk page. You might consider userfying this article to work on it some more before publishing it in the main namespace. (to sign type four tilde "~") marks).OfficeGirl 16:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep As a member of Smalltalk community I can definitively claim that this article is worth staying on Wikipedia because Sport portability library solves such an important problem: how to easily port Smalltalk code between dialects. So maybe with a bit more work on content this article will fo a lot of good by informing other Smalltalkers about Sport mission. And this is one of goals of Wikipedia, isn't it? Mivsek 16:41, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Welcome to Wikipedia, Misvek. I hope you enjoy participating with us in the encyclopedic process. I appreciate your enthusiasm for this software, but your personal affinity for the subject isn't what we need in the way of reasons to keep this article. However, since you have some knowledge of the subject and you might know where articles about this software have been published, you can be a great help.
Please review the guidelines for reliable sources and get hold of some appropriate articles that show us cold hard proof that this software is well known and well established in the field. That's one of the most important steps to keeping this article from being deleted. And take heart, Mivsek, if the article is deleted you can still research the subject and re-create it later when there is more published work about the subject.
I just checked in our Smalltalk public repository when first version of Sport was published: 20 jan 06. I can provide more info how to prove that by yourself. And Sport was present on ESUG 07 (European Smalltalk Users Group) in at least two talks. See its mention in mine for instance, which is about Swazoo web server, which also use Sport for more than a year: Swazoo. I think that a year and half of existence and usage in projects is already a sign of notability. Also, a grand idea behind Sport is to restart the ANSI standardization process for Smalltalk.Mivsek 19:30, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Misvek. I am not an editor of the Sport article, but you can share those resources with Mr. Badger or anyone else who is working on the article, or you can edit it yourself. Just keep in mind that Wikipedia uses its own definition of the word notability that is different from the plain dictionary definition in the regular world outside Wikipedia. A year and a half of existence does not mean that something is truly notable for Wikipedia purposes, and it may be too soon to see whether Sport will have a lasting impact on the software world overall. But sources, sources, sources are key to this process. And the sources need to meet the guidelines in WP:RS. Thanks for starting to do some work on this.OfficeGirl 19:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Since the creator of the software is telling us he posted the article in order for more people to learn of its existence, the natural reaction is that this is an attempt at advertising in violation of WP:ADVERT. We are probably going to take a little harder stance on requiring proof that a lot of people already know about this subject. Wikipedia is not the place for new or relatively new ideas and products to be introduced to the world. Not even the greatest new idea in the world. Get us the secondary sources and that will be a really big help. thanks. OfficeGirl 17:35, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Please Keep This project/software is important to Smalltalk. This project allows portability not easily achievable with its use. You may not be aware but Smalltalk is pretty much the father of most Object Oriented languages, including C++, Java, C#, and more. Actually the faux cutting edge technology or Java and Dot Net are just bad copies of what Smalltalk has done for 20 years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.228.195.206 (talk) 18:37, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for joining our discussion. We welcome your input. But the fact that the Sport software is the greatest thing since sliced bread doesn't help us qualify this article for inclusion in Wikipedia. "It is useful" is not a reason we can use to keep an article here. See WP:USEFUL We need sources, sources, sources. See WP:RS. Articles, books, treatises, etc. We have to meet a standard on Wikipedia that is called NOTABILITY. To learn about what notability is for Wikipedia purposes, see WP:N. You can help Mr. Badger work on the article and get it ready for publication at a later date, but it does not meet Wikipedia standards at this time. OfficeGirl 19:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete. It's a copyright violation. I gave Mr. Badger pointers on what he needed to do in order to verify that he is the copyright holder, and he has yet to do so. Regardless of the merits of the subject, until and unless the creator proves that he is the copyright holder, it must be deleted. There is nothing to discuss. Corvus cornix 21:19, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep Hey, the last is not true and is unfair. You asked that I explain on the original wiki page that the Wikipedia page was an OK use of the text that *I* wrote. I have done that. I know it's not a *vote* BTW. I hoped to demonstrate notability which I was told was very important. I am having trouble in keeping up with the discussions because you are using a wiki as a messaging system which is very confusing to me. Also, in my attempts to to exactly what you are asking for I seem to be digging deeper into some hole. This is very frustrating. Could you please explain in plain English what you need us (because now you know it is the Smalltalk community that wants this page) to do. Thanks. (and here is an attempt at a signature) Bbadger 22:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is on your Talk page: If you own the copyright to the material: send an e-mail from an address associated with the original publication to permissions-en(at)wikimedia(dot)org or a postal message to the Wikimedia Foundation permitting re-use under the GFDL, and note that you have done so on the article's talk page. Alternatively, you may create a note on your web page releasing the work under the GFDL and then leave a note at Talk:Sport (software) with a link to the details. . Did you do that? I also left the following on your Talk page: Please follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Copyright problems, the section labeled Copyright owners who submitted their own work to Wikipedia. This helps Wikipedia editors to determine the validity of claims of copyright. We get lots of people who claim copyright whose claims are false. I'm not saying that your claims are false, but Wikipedia needs verification Did you do that? Corvus cornix 22:35, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have added a note to the original wiki page that makes it clear that it is OK for me to use my own copyright material on the Sport page. I am willing to take the time to add to the content of Wikipedia, but frankly I do not have the time to play these games. I am sure that someone will revive the Sport page, but you've ground me down so that person will not be me.Bbadger 07:06, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep you ask for "cold hard proof". I have added references to an international conference at which Sport was discussed (ESUG). In fact several of the talks mentioned Sport as it is becoming a widely used portability tool. The people on the comp.lang.smalltalk list are not "meatpuppets" thank you very much. comp.lang.smalltalk is a news group with a very high signal to noise ratio frequented by people who use Smalltalk professionally. So you have professional bodies and international conferences and source management systems and expert opinion - what more can we do to convince you? Bbadger 22:20, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I do not think the references added adequately establish notability. The article topic does not appear to be discussed in detail in the conference notes; the third reference only mentions Sport briefly in passing as part of a list; and the last reference is obviously not a third-party source. —ptk✰fgs 17:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep I deny saying that I created the article in order to promote Sport. I said that I created the article because Wikipedia seemed like a more sensible place for non-implementation details of sport (what it does rather than how it does it). I *did* note that articles in Wikipedia do promote things in general - they all promote ideas and points of view etc. Bbadger 22:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, other crap exists. We should delete all of it, rather than letting the encyclopedia disintegrate into a pile of software documentation. The Free and Open Source Software Wiki is probably a more appropriate place for general-interest software documentation. —ptk✰fgs 17:55, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have put a copyvio tag on the article and blanked the page as per instructions at WP:CP, but the edits are all still in the history. Corvus cornix 22:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so now you have blanked the page as a copyright infringement despite the fact that I have done what you asked. You are not supporting the creation of great entries in the Wikipedia with this kind of action. Frankly I am very disappointed that a positive action taken to move the technical world forward a bit has been brushed aside without any reasonable discussion - and I don't call the things you have said discussion by any means. How on earth can you expect people to contribute when you treat them in this way? If you had given us just a few days to actually work on the page rather than sucking us into this pseudo legalistic debate you might have a positive addition to Wikipedia - instead you have just wasted our time and your time. Good job there. Bbadger 22:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Badger, your article is undergoing several very routine processes in Wikipedia. there is nothing personal against you or your work as a software designer. You can have more than just a few days to work on your article if you userfy it. Please check your user talk page. I have given you information on how to userfy there. An article needs to meet Wikipedia's standards before it can be published. Try reviewing Wikipedia:Your first article. Give some thought to this quotation from an old edit by Dpbsmith about going out of the house without one's bathrobe on:
"The other side of that coin is that if people would wait four minutes to write one decent paragraph before creating an article, they wouldn't be so apt to get listed on VfD. Posting something like the first version of this article is like walking out the front door naked, and then complaining that people didn't even give you a chance to get dressed. Maybe the neighbors shouldn't be so quick to call the cops, but if someone doesn't want that hassle it's pretty easy just to throw on a bathrobe first."
I know this process can be frustrating, but the rules and procedures are here for a reason, and they are very important. OfficeGirl 23:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looking back at this discussion I can see that several people really have tried to help. Office girl stands out as trying to be helpful. Others have been more inclined to go for the big stick and drowning the issue in procedure such that the obvious simplicity of this situation was lost. Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks to those people who were helpful and thanks to Wikipedia as a whole for providing such an excellent resource. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.86.102.62 (talk) 08:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, Mr. Badger. Well, it looks like you've gotten yourself a baptism by fire learning the way things work in Wikipedia the hard way. It's different than many people expect. Sorry about the culture shock. If I understand well enough what Sport is, I think you can find other Wikipedians to help with your article here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Free_Software#Participants. Take heart. This process really works to make all the articles turn out properly in due time if the subject is qualified. OfficeGirl 10:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Badger has added a GFDL release on the original page, and I have therefore removed the copyvio tag from the article. Since there is now no longer a copyvio issue, I change my participation in this discussion to delete, no notability established. Corvus cornix 15:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Firstly, many thanks to OfficeGirl for directly addressing the copyright issue. Your help was very much appreciated. Next, I have added in references to conferences dating back to 2004 where Sport (not by that name at that time) had it's first public airing. I have re-worded some of the text too. I would appreciate an indication of whether we are heading in the right direction here, and if not then why not. Thanks. Bbadger 17:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop !voting multiple times. Corvus cornix 17:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I didn't know I was voting. I guess this is by saying "keep" that I "voted" - is that right? I'm sure you can understand my mistake because I got a message saying that this process was definitely *not* a vote. Now you say it is. Confusing or what? I would appreciate more your view on whether the changes that we are making to the Sport page are trending in the right direction and addressing the issues that you have raised. Thanks. Bbadger 17:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, I don't think the current trend is a good one. We still have the author of the software working on an article about his own project and that needs to stop ASAP. —ptk✰fgs 17:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This process is not a vote, however it is a chance for people to register a (policy-backed) opinion. That should be done once per user. And I concur with Ptkfgs: your continued editing will not help. Especially since the sources added do not seem to address the concerns raised about notability. Also, on an unrelated note, I'd like to register a request for a snowball close to this AfD. --Bfigura (talk) 17:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PLEASE REVIEW I have reduced this article to a stub with one valid assertion of notability which can be verified by a reliable source and is properly cited. I have tagged it for Wikipedia:WikiProject_Free_Software and I have posted a note about the article on their TO-DO list. It's not what Mr. Badger envisioned, but it might be worth keeping now. Please let me know what other editors think of these changes. Thanks. OfficeGirl 19:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep per officegirl's changes. (Striking earlier vote above). --Bfigura (talk) 19:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Non-notable software. Keb25 22:41, 6 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment While I appreciate OfficeGirl's efforts, it's still not notable. Being the subject of one lecture to a user group is far from notability: the speaker wasn't notable, the conference wasn't notable, the group for whom the conference was given wasn't notable. I go to lots of seminars at a university where panels and individuals (some notable enough to have articles here) spiel on about their various theories, discoveries, inventions - some of which are based on papers published in journals (again notable enough to have articles at WP) but that does not make their theories or discoveries or inventions notable. Same too, in the software world I'm afraid. If I present my design for a better paper airplane to a paper airplane users group do I get an article here? does my plane? nope & nope. Or is every topic covered at a notable convention inherently notable - whether's it's the shriners, a Trekkie thing, a scout jamboree, or some group of academics letting their hair down in Vegas - conventions such as these cover 100s of topics, plenary sessions, break out groups, multiple tracks, etc. They just aren't all notable. Carlossuarez46 00:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I still support the deletion of this page. The lecture was given by the creator of the software. Thus, the article still lacks notability asserting coverage by independant third parties. i said 01:17, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
From a totality of the circumstances, I interpreted the available information in the light that an independent third party which is knowledgeable in the field chose to have the subject of this article featured in its international symposium, analogous to when a third party publication chooses to print a word-for-word interview from a primary subject. The information given does come from the mouth of the primary source, but the independent third party used its judgment to feature that speaker talking about the questions and topics of their choosing and approval, and that's third-party coverage. OfficeGirl 01:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As Carlos said, if the event was notable, maybe, just maybe. However, the even was not a notable event, and not third party enough in my mind, to qualify it as notability creating coverage. A 45 minute speech given among 35 others by the creator of the software does not grant notability. i said 02:20, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changing vote to KEEP (stub) I wanted to see the reasoning that editors might have for any negative response on the notability question now that the article is a stub. I don't agree with the reasons given by Carlossuarez46, because my choice to demonstrate that an assertion of notability can be made and documented was based on a totality of the circumstances.
Mr. Badger is in fact the founder and leader of a non-profit group of Free Open Source Software developers (OpenSkills) which has been determined to be notable enough to have its own article on Wikipedia well before Mr. Badger ever signed on to Wikipedia. The European association brought him from Australia to Switzerland to give his lecture, and he is an annual lecturer with them. Mr. Badger is telling the truth when he says that Sport is well known among SmallTalk users, and it is widely discussed on user forums-- in fact it is mentioned in a ho-hum "everyone knows that software" tone. Those are not sources we can use in a Wikipedia article, but their existence was persuasive to me that the software actually is well-known and has a somewhat wide usage in the field. In addition, this is free software-- not a for profit sales venture, which makes it a lot less like an ad and more like an instance of zealous actions by a confused newbie acting in good faith. Remember WP:BITE. I am inclined to think that a stub is perfectly appropriate in this case.OfficeGirl 01:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've never heard WP:BITE cited to keep articles which fail our WP:N guidelines. Many people are leaders of something and they produce things: software, widgets, ideas - heck there are over 5,000,000 US patents is each of those inventions that can be verified to the USPTO website notable if a newbie puts up an article? nope. There are 1000s of journals, with 10s or 100s of thousands of articles, is each notable? is the subject of each notable? Is that true if done by a newbie? Is every software that is the subject of a 1/2 hour speech at some non-notable conference notable? Only for newbies? Nowhere has anyone bitten anyone, or acted contrary to good faith. The simple application of WP:N standards to all articles equally leads to the indisputable conclusion that this so far fails WP:N that were this authored by anyone else, no one would really be defending this. Carlossuarez46 02:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the stub that is in place presently was primarily authored by me, since nothing is left of the article pretty much other than my changes. I have said before and for clarification I will say again, the reason I made reference to "don't bite the newbies" is that I sense a bit of a punitive attitude against Mr. Badger as a person for the mistakes he made (mostly) in good faith, even though those mistakes can be cured. We shouldn't punish the article for the mistakes of a newbie editor, if the article can be salvaged by other editors. I'm not a mind reader, and I am just saying it is possible for such a coloration to influence the votes in part or in full, and that's why I mention "don't bite the newbies." I am not judging your conscience or accusing anyone, just making a general reminder. You are entitled to your views and I respect them. I am convinced that the stub that is here present is now an appropriate expansion of the Wikipedia knowledge base.OfficeGirl 03:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding notability, I had added referenced to two earlier conferences. One in 2004 and one in 2005 which both had talks about Sport, though the first one did not use that name. Also, again in response to this notability thing, I asked on comp.lang.smalltalk for people to help out with this article but that backfired because the people from comp.lang.smalltalk were deemed to be "meatpuppets". The "meatpuppet" epithet probably also scared off people from editing the article too. The article (as I last edited it) currently:

  • significantly covers what Sport is (and I should know)
  • Can be verified with reference to discussions since early 2006 on comp.lang.smalltalk (and other lists)
  • Has been presented and discussed at international conferences since 2004 (I linked to the conference notes) which I would have thought would be sound sources
  • Independence is the tricky one. Sport is only directly interesting to the Smalltalk community and people who want to use Smalltalk. But then, the same might be said of Seaside which is of a similar vintage.

Is Wikipedia now saying that "notability" is the next big stumbling block now that the copyright thing is out of the way? ... and that, the only real issue is that the article should be edited by more people but that we must just let that kind of happen withot any action on my part?81.86.102.62 06:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • I thank OfficeGirl to take the time to try to make something useful out of this article, but I still don't see anything that makes it notable. We need something besides a talk at a SmallTalk gathering. Corvus cornix 15:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Though to be fair it is three international Smalltalk conferences over four years, one of which was part of Linux World in Toronto - per the links I added to the article before it was made into a stub. As it happens it has been presented at smaller local Smalltalk user group meetings but I didn't mention that because, well, it hardly seemed notable. Bbadger 16:51, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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