Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Protestware

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 redirect to Hactivism. content under the redirect if folks would like to merge. Star Mississippi 01:57, 28 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Protestware[edit]

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Fails the GNG for a lack of significant coverage in sources; uses of the term appear to be limited to the context of peacenotwar (malware). The sources in the article and in a BEFORE check seem to focus on the malware and its creator, Brandon Miller (motorcyclist) (article also subject to an AfD). The article also appears to contain some amount of original research. For example, the line "Protestware was first used to describe peacenotwar..." is cited to snyk.io but the word "protestware" is not found in the cited article. The same occurs for the line "Although the term was actively being used to describe other incidents some time before peacenotwar...", which is cited to Hackaday. -"Ghost of Dan Gurney" 01:54, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. -"Ghost of Dan Gurney" 01:54, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -"Ghost of Dan Gurney" 01:54, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Page should be deleted: The word is a neologism if we're being generous, but is likely closer to a protologism which has only been used for the purpose of spin doctoring cyber crimes. The Gentle Sleep (talk) 08:46, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: (from the article's creator) The term will remain relevant, it has already been used in another incident regarding the package es5-ext. Admittedly, there is still active development of the term, it is actively being used by cybersecurity researchers (as such the article states). I did some refactoring of the page to update the sections and sources (some references had been updated therefore they became invalid) to give a more general overview of the word. Feel free to request more changes and adaptions if needed. DevSpenpai (talk) 14:20, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We don't have a crystal ball , so we can't predict whether or not a term will remain relevant. If the term sees wide enough use in the future, then a page could always be created at that time. Your definition also already has a commonly accepted word, see Hacktivism The Gentle Sleep (talk) 19:49, 20 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or merge to Malware. MarioGom (talk) 11:10, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I think merging it with a different article is a great solution. Not sure which is more applicable though, merging to Malware or Hacktivism? DevSpenpai (talk) 21:13, 21 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, Hacktivism sounds like a good target too. MarioGom (talk) 15:12, 22 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect/Merge to Hacktivism per above. It does seem to be a term that will sticking around (OSI just did a press release about it), but won't have significant enough coverage by itself just yet. //Lollipoplollipoplollipop::talk 14:19, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that a redirect/ merge to [Hacktivism] would the most appropriate way to handle the page. OSI put the term in scare quotes so I'm not so sure their article indicates the term gaining acceptance in the open source community. The Gentle Sleep (talk) 19:21, 25 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to hacktivism per Lollipoplollipoplollipop. This material is premature, and I agree with The Gentle Sleep that it counts as a neologism for us right now, so keep is not a reasonable option. — Charles Stewart (talk) 09:39, 26 March 2022 (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.