Draft:SAP Sailing Analytics

• Comment: Special:Diff/1191173087: The problem with the references is as already explained. Most sources that are cited here barely support the contents, and that is bad, because it doesn't suffice to establish notability. For example, footnote 14, which I have previously criticised as failing the CTRL+F-test, is used to support the following claim: "SAP was the title sponsor during the years 2010 to 2018" – the source doesn't contain any mentioning of "SAP Sailing Analytics": How does it relate to this draft? (I know but that doesn't count). Next is the date issue: The claim is "2010 to 2018". How can a source dated 22 September 2017 support such a claim? How is that supposed to work if the source doesn't even contain any mentioning of the years "2010" or "2018"? How is it supposed to support the claim of a sponsorship if the root "sponsor" is not mentioned in that source? The answer to all these questions is that the source referred to in footnote 14 is used as a proof of plausibility: The source discusses 505 teams tuning up for the 2017 World Championship, it mentions that previous championships were held, and all photographs depict 505 craft with SAP-branded sails. One could use this get the basic idea, but that's not how Wikipedia works. The sources must do all the thinking, but in this case, the source doesn't do that, at least not what it was cited for. It doesn't discuss how SAP was the title sponsor, it doesn't discuss how SAP Sailing Analytics was used in that event. It's just a source discussing how sailing teams were tuning up for a 2017 Championship.
  Now, the problem that I have described using the example of footnote 14 doesn't immediately apply to 5/22 footnotes. It's good that at least five footnotes aren't outright useless, but it's bad that I deem that 17/22 are. At least I can say that I belive that all footnotes were created with good intent. But that's it. This draft fails to demonstrate how reliable secondary sources discuss SAP Sailing Analytics, which is required to demonstrate that Wikipedia should have an article on that topic. Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 14:36, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: This draft needs some major rewriting. I looked through all the references and I had to remove 10 references because they were totally unrelated to this draft's subject or because they referred to sources that don't qualify as Wikipedia sources. The remaining 22 references refer to sources that hardly indicate why Wikipedia would have an article on the topic. Various sources are WP:SIRS-compliant, i.e., they could be used to demonstrate why the topic is notable, however, I have doubts about some of these, and all sources that could indicate notability are topic-specific sources. Topic-specific sources are generally less suited for establishing notability. Nonetheless, additional WP:SIRS-compliant sources could help demonstrating the topic's notability.
  The draft's tone is mostly okay and the text has only few grammar mistakes, but it's obvious that it was composed by a native German speaker.
  The technology section remains largely unreferenced and needs some additional sources before the draft can be accepted. Note that Google Play and the AppStore don't qualify as sources for Wikipedia. The overall sourcing situation is also not good. 5/22 sources fail the WP:CTRL+F-test, 4/22 sources contain nothing more than passing mentions, 6/22 sources are obvious press releases, 3/22 sources are very likely SIRS-compliant, and 3/22 sources could be SIRS-compliant, but I have doubts, and 1/22 sources cannot be assessed due to a paywall. The sourcing needs significant improving before this can be accepted.
  *Seahorsemagazine (1): WP:SIRS-compliant
  *Yachtfernsehen (2): Just a passing mention
  *sapsailing.com (3): Obviously not independent
  *sail-world.com (4): Not even a passing mention
  *FuW (5): Not even a passing mention (but an acceptable source for the claim that Jim Hagemann Snabe is a sailor)
  *Financial Times (6): Behind a paywall
  *Marketscreener (7): Not an independent source
  *sail-world.com (8): Could be WP:SIRS-compliant, but I suspect a press release
  *extremesailingseries.com (9): Press release, not independent
  *sapsailing.com (10): Not independent
  *Sailing-Champnsleague (11): Press release, not independent, but reliable
  *webandsail (12): WP:SIRS-compliant
  *SAP Blog (13): Doesn't need any exaplaining, neither independent nor reliable
  *Spinsheet (14): No mention of SAP Sailing Analytics
  *Sailingworld (15): No mention of SAP Sailing Analytics
  *49er.org (16): Could be WP:SIRS-compliant
  *Sailing.org (17): Just a passing mention
  *Aarhus2018.sailing.org (18): Just a passing mention
  *DenHaag2023 (19): Just a passing mention
  *Sail-World.com (20): Could be WP:SIRS-compliant, but there is not author information (i.e., it could be a press release)
  *Australiansailingteam (21): Not even a passing mention
  *Teschke (22): An acceptable WP:SIRS-compliant source, but it doesn't contain the term "Python". And the pages make sense, but 18-31 is a wide range of pages.
  Best regards, --Johannes (Talk) (Contribs) (Articles) 09:33, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

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Responding to your comments. I've changed the statement about SAP being the title sponsor (which I had provided for background only to explain the history and context that for a long time had supported the project), talking only about "several years". I also provided more references that support this statement for more of the years mentioned.

Likewise, I added another reference about the Aarhus 2018 World Championship. And before you again fail with a Ctrl-F search, the Andrew Preece quote on p.53 talks about "SAP Analytics" as a reference to the solution described here.

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The "SAP Sailing Analytics" is a software solution for portraying and analyzing sailing regattas. It consists of a web site (sapsailing.com) where live and past sailing events can be viewed, as well as three companion apps that support the satellite tracking of boats, course marks, as well as data input by race officials, such as start times, course configurations, penalties, or finishing orders. In December 2023 the web site held information about more than 70,000 sailing races, featuring satellite navigation tracking data for the competitors' boats, course marks, as well as wind measurements and information from race officials, combining this data with the official scoring rules to display a leader-board.

History

In 2011, SAP started a program within its Global Sponsorships department to support the sport of sailing. A spin-off of the Deutscher Segler Verband, "Sailing Team Germany," operated by Konzeptwerft had approached SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner about supporting the sport of sailing, knowing that Plattner was engaged in the sport, participating in World Championships of the 505 Boat Class as well as sailing in the Dragon class at the time. SAP board member Jim Hagemann Snabe, a sailor himself, then set up a team to work on the task.

As a result, at Kieler Woche 2011 a first prototype was demonstrated, only in the TV studio, mostly operated and presented by Marcus Baur. SAP decided to continue the program. More events in 2011, notably Travemünder Woche 2011 and the Meisterschaft der Meister in Hamburg triggered the decision to continue with the program into 2012.

In 2012, the Extreme Sailing Series started using the solution for their live leaderboards, both on-site and on the web. Other projects followed, and the web site sapsailing.com featured ten events in 2012, 18 in 2013, 26 in 2014, and more than 70 events per year on average in subsequent years.

Major events

Besides the acts of multiple national sailing leagues, such as the Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Austrian, German, or Dutch, the SAP Sailing Analytics have been used at World Championships, of various boat classes such as the 505 (where SAP was title sponsor in several years between 2010 and 2018) or 49er, several Sailing World Cup events as well as the World Championships of the Olympic boat classes at the time, such as 2018 in Aarhus and 2023 in The Hague, and all Kieler Woche editions from 2011 until and including 2023.

The solution was also used at the "Tokyo 2020" Olympic Summer Games.

The sailing test event for the Olympic Summer Games 2024 in Paris with the sailing competitions taking place off the coast of Marseille has also been supported by the SAP Sailing Analytics.

Technology

The SAP Sailing Analytics started out as a throw-away prototype in 2011, made for a one-time use at Kieler Woche 2011. The technological foundations were a Java-based back-end, using OSGi as its component model, with MongoDB as the persistence layer, and a Python-based web UI layer.

Early 2012, the Python web UI layer was replaced by a new implementation, based on the Google Web Toolkit (GWT). This enabled code sharing between front-end and back-end, e.g., for geo-spherical geometry or sailing domain specifics such as the flag displays during start sequences.

Also starting in 2012, Amazon Web Services was used as the cloud infrastructure for hosting, running, and scaling the solution. Around 2014 the SAP Sailing Analytics added a scale-out mechanism, based on RabbitMQ, allowing for elastic scalability depending on current work loads.

Around 2020, SAP offered sailors a smartphone app "Sail Insight", available for Android and iOS, that lets competitors track themselves while racing. The app can also be used to track course marks, start and finish boats and to set up and manage simple sailing events.