Talk:TurnKey Linux Virtual Appliance Library

I am editing the article to comply with Wikipedia standards (yes, including notability standards and RS). Please be patient. LirazSiri (talk) 18:02, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Reliable sources

I didn't add these sources to the body of the proposed article because they are not in English, but they should still count towards notability:

Infoworld.nl: Kant-en-klare open source bedrijfsapplicaties

UbuntuLinux.fr: TurnKey Linux propose ses appliances sous Ubuntu 8.04.2 LirazSiri (talk) 01:04, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

RfC: How can this proposed article be improved?

This article was rewritten based on an earlier article that was deleted in a rather messy affair instigated by an anonymous IP vandal.

From: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_61#Notability criteria for entries on free software projects?

I don't see that anyone noticed that the speedy deletion tag was placed by an IP editor, but I haven't read all the reams of discussion this generated. This affair is a poster boy for requiring AfD when speedy deletion is contested. Simple enough, and far, far less contentious. (AfD can be bad enough). Contested speedy deletion, if undeletion is refused, isn't speedy, and it's much harder for a "losing editor" to accept. I requested the article undeleted and userfied so that people can see it, it's now at User:Abd/TurnKey Linux, and one of the first things I noticed was that the db-spam tag was added by 87.196.76.86. The IP geolocates to Portugal, and it may or may not mean anything that the editor also nominated NUbuntu (speedy denied), and quite inappropriately removed Alinex, a Portuguese distribution, from List of Ubuntu-based distributions. In four minutes on January 29, this anonymous editor created quite a splash. Maybe it's about time the IP gets credit for this. Is this the same editor who tenderly expressed some wishes today with a series of edits, including [6]? In any case, I suspect there are some lessons to be learned from this affair, so I'm starting a page, User:Abd/Open Source notability to examine the issues that LirazSiri attempted to raise here, without all the shouting. Anyone interested, join the salon. Be nice. --Abd (talk) 03:57, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Full disclosure: I have a potential WP:COI with this article, since it describes a project I co-founded and contribute to. According to Wikipedia guidelines that doesn't preclude me from editing/writing the article but I understand I have to be careful. I've tried my best to neutralize how this effects my judgment and edit the article from a NPOV, but just to be on the safe side I am requesting comments. LirazSiri (talk) 01:19, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

LirazSiri requested that I take a look at this RfC. I'm sorry to report that when I said that my real concern was with the process and I wasn't certain of my own opinion about the notability of the article, I was serious. With the current articulation of notability on Wikipedia I don't think I can endorse this as WP:Notable - not because of anything it says in the article but because without having fleshed out better notability guidelines for OSS (which I think LirazSiri and Abd are correct that we need) I honestly don't think this topic can defensibly make the cut for inclusion in the encyclopedia. (And consequently, under the current guidelines many other Ubuntu distro articles technically ought to be deleted too, although I would want to postpone any such destruction of content until more attention is spent on the OSS-specific guidelines.)

One other bit of advice for LirazSiri: it might be an idea, if you have the time and wherewithal, to try fleshing out and organizing some entire category of articles that would include TurnKey Linux - all open-source operating system LiveCD distributions, for example, in concert with the development of OSS notability guidelines. This might help to convince the WP community that your efforts on the TurnKey article are borne genuinely out of an interest in improving Wikipedia and not solely for promotion of the software project. (Though of course I can't speak for anyone except myself. And if you're just completely fed up with Wikipedia at this point I would understand.) --❨Ṩtruthious ℬandersnatch❩ 09:49, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

In the lack of specialised notability guidelines for OSS, I assume that the fallback position would be that of the general notability guidelines, would it not? In which case, the issue is whether or not it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial coverage in reliable sources. I'm willing to accept the Information Week article (although it should be used as a reference, rather than as an "External link", and it would be easy enough to add it as one), but I'm not convinced of the Linux Devices article in terms of notability. So the main change I'd want to make is to find some more sources to show that TurnKey Linux has had sufficient coverage. - Bilby (talk) 10:43, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that we would simply punt back to the GNG in a case like this. But I'd like to think that Linux Devices is a reliable source (if not a significant one) and between that and the Ubuntu newsletter that should cover a little more ground. Maybe those and the Information Week article makes "two" Significant Sources (but, then again, I'm a ruthless inclusionist). If nothing else this is the very bottom of what could pass for a supportable article. Very good work. I'd vote Keep and improve in an AfD. Padillah (talk) 11:53, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Try to find more references. I did a Google News search and found: [1] (Information Week); [2] (tectonic); [3] (in German; I can read German (with difficulty and with the help of a dictionary) so if you think this reference would add notability, I can extract some facts from it for you if you ask me to.) There may be other places you can find references: maybe look through some IT magazines or something. I tried Google Scholar and found a few extremely brief mentions of "turnkey Linux" but I think they were referring to the concept in general, not to this specific project. I hope this helps. ☺Coppertwig (talk) 13:01, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

They are all three regurgitations from the same press release. Mind you, that they got a page at InformationWeek shows that they have some actual notability. Will be waiting for some independient sources.

P.D.: (notice the german one is a newsticker with little news and tibdits). --Enric Naval (talk) 14:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Be sure to review the criticisms at DRV: [4]. Some of them are moot; Here, LirazSiri's COI is totally irrelevant; presumably consensus will be found here on the best article, most bullet-proof against AfD, before it moves back to mainspace. We can decide at that time what procedure to follow. The DRV was withdrawn, so we could go back there, if asking the deleting admin, nicely, to allow return doesn't come up with a satisfactory answer. Or, probably better, it could just go back to mainspace, because there never was an AfD on this; if it is properly sourced, etc., at that point, the speedy criteria should be even more questionable, and there may be no admin willing to speedy it. In which case, done. Please do not move the article back to mainspace without consultation here, and LS, you should not be the one to move it back, period. --Abd (talk) 15:33, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

About the blanking of this page.

With this edit, the page, which I had blanked because of expressed concerns about advertising, was unblanked. I have no personal objection to this; however, at this point, any editor may blank the page if the editor has a good-faith concern about advertising. It is harmless, therefore not worth contention; any editor may work on the page from the latest unblanked version, save it, and, to be maximally courteous, then reblank it. It would also be legitimate to continue working on the article here without blanking; as long as there is a reasonable level of work taking place, that would be quite normal. I'm leaving it unblanked. An alternate solution would be to tag on the article to prevent searches from finding it. Again, I'm not doing that, but it would be acceptable and probably less hassle than blanking/restoring/reblanking. --Abd (talk) 15:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)