Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dataphor

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 keep. Only the nominator is backing deletion; sourcing isn't ideal but has been improved, with the consensus now being to keep. (non-admin closure) -- Trevj (talk) 11:40, 23 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dataphor[edit]

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Topic has received a handful of mentions but no discussion in several database books. Sole google scholar hit is to an unpublished, uncited whitepaper. Based on this and the guidelines in WP:NSOFT, in my opinion there are not sufficient reliable sources to justify an article on this topic at this time. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 20:30, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or Merge While I'm unable to find great notability inclusion criteria for Dataphor itself, I am able to find references to D4, the primary language built as a part of Dataphor. Hugh Darwen (who, maintains and develops the relational model), cited D4 as a potential Industrial D in his paper The Askew Wall. Disclaimer: I created the original stub for the article, and have made a few small changes since. McKay (talk) 13:50, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Update: Further research shows that it does meet inclusion criteria under "having historical or technical significance by reliable sources",
  - Dataphor is regarded as one of few DBMSs that follow Codd's 12 rules:
    - [1][2]
  - Dataphor is regarded as one of few DBMSs that are "Truly relational" (basically the same as following all 12 rules)
    - Fabian Pascal frequently refers to Dataphor as Truly-Relational. (note he includes it as one of three TRDBMSs in the bottom right corner of his blog)[3]
  - McKay (talk) 14:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    - Hi McKay. Thanks for doing the legwork. However, the three links you've given above are to blogs, and those are not generally considered reliable sources (see WP:BLOGS for the particulars). "The Askew Wall" is also self-published as best I can tell. Do you know of any trade press articles on Dataphor? Textbooks that mention it? Peer-reviewed pubs? Thanks! Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:42, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
      - I'm not aware of any trade press articles that have been published in the past decade. There were some articles about it over 10 years ago, when they did a big marketing push, but I'm not aware of any pushes they've done recently. Sure they're blogs, but they're industry expert blogs. I'd consider Fabian Pascal, akin to Schneider on Security, for what it's worth. I'd be surprised if there were any books published about it, but it might be mentioned in later editions of The Third Manifesto. The Askew Wall is a lecture that has been given by Hugh Darwen (an industry expert, who was not involved in the creation of D4) several times, internationally. Darwin is not a professor with the University of Warwick, so that link would be considered not self published? But he does have close ties to that university, and they have hosted it for him. According to CiteSeer "This lecture descends from one first given to a British Computer Society audience in December, 1987. In the early 1990s it found its way around various conferences and British universities, including Warwick." (citeseer only directly hosts the notes to the slides to the lecture?). I heard Darwen give his "The Askew Wall" lecture at Brigham Young University (in the United States) (and he did mention D4 / Dataphor), about 10 years ago. I don't know if there's more.McKay (talk) 20:40, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What we're looking for are publications where the editor/publisher and writer are distinct entities, and the editor/publisher exerts some amount of control over the results. That excludes blogs and presentations. Any book (not from a vanity press), any peer-reviewed journal article, and most trade press articles are fine; press releases aren't. See WP:SELFPUBLISH for an extended discussion, and WP:NSOFT for guidance on notability for software. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 21:16, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]
[4] I know this isn't quite what you're looking for, but this is an example of competitors referencing Dataphor in whitepapers (which is kinda self-published, but found all over the web). McKay (talk) 14:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Chris Date name drops Dataphor all the time

does this reference count as trade press?

What about Dr. Dobbs? McKay (talk) 14:33, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A reliable source has to do something more than mentioning the article. The r20 whitepaper and the Register article only mention Dataphor (tries to) implement the third manifesto (and both devote just a single sentence to doing so). The Dr. Dobbs mention is a press release. The mpcmag may be a dead link (although my connectivity isn't the best at the moment). Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:26, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 21:05, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Northamerica1000^(talk) 21:05, 2 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

~~delete~~keep It exists, but is anyone else paying attention to it? I've worked on a dozen of very similar proprietary languages like this. Just two of them maybe approached notability. In general, a product like this doesn't unless some independent industry-credible commentator gives it some serious study. I'm seeing none of that here. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:57, 6 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think that Fabian Pascal, Hugh Darwen, and Chris Date (who exceed your "industry-credible" level and are "industry-leaders"?) have "give[n] it serious study". McKay (talk) 14:22, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well I see those three names together and I reach for my dinosaur hunting rifle, but I agree that these are the calibre of commentator who convey notability. If you can add some sourcing from them to the article, and if it says at least as much as "I think Dataphor is significant / significantly good / significantly bad", then I'd be happy to keep this. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:36, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Added a new section covering expert opinions on the project.McKay (talk) 19:53, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think there's still room for expansion here, as it would be good to explain the "Dataphor is the only truly relational product on the market" issue in depth. The attention paid to it by heavy-hitters like Date are enough to answer for notability though. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:33, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 16:50, 10 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:15, 19 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per the sources added by McKay. Even the though the Fabian Pascal source is a blog, it is acceptable per WP:USERG: "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." --Cerebellum (talk) 17:30, 20 September 2013 (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.