Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FlipScript

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. MBisanz ^talk 02:14, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

FlipScript

Article about commercial website selling products. Text of article does not make any attempt to establish any sort of notability. The only sources are its own site and a very obscure blog page, not a reliable source. It's written to sound promotional instead of educational, and without anything to say about why anyone reading an encyclopedia should care, I don't think it would ever be anything but a brochure. I prodded article, but an anon user deleted the notice without comment and without addressing any of the problems, so am listing for AfD. DreamGuy (talk) 01:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I created this page. I have no affiliation with the company and I discovered it recently. I've been creating ambigrams for over 30 years and this company is very interesting to people interested in ambigrams. If the material sounds promotional, sorry about that -- I took what I could find. The 200,000 strokes stat is interesting, even if it is something the company is touting. If you can find more info, by all means add it.

If for no other reason, they are notable because they are the first company to provide customized ambigram products, with computer-generated ambigrams. I did not add a page for Glyphusion, the company that created the technology, or any of the other licenses because I don't think they're as notable now (this could change in the future, for example, if Glyphusion had hundreds of licensees instead of just four).

Competitors such as CafePress and Zazzle also have pages. Zazzle's page is about the same size, with about the same level of content.

I probably should have written this in the page's talk page, but I didn't think anybody would question the notability. I have done so now, with roughly the same text as above.

RoyLeban (talk) 02:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

P.S. If you were interested in ambigrams, you would probably know about the ambigramblog. It's one of several devoted to ambigrams. It's not obscure. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RoyLeban (talk • contribs) 02:10, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

"If for no other reason, they are notable because they are the first company to provide customized ambigram products, with computer-generated ambigrams." That may make them notable to you, but that's a far cry from being notable for Wikipedia. And knowing about ambigramblog means it's not obscure to you, but by real world measures (the ones Wikipedia uses), it sure is. DreamGuy (talk) 18:05, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

• Delete, per WP:WEB. --fvw* 02:12, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
• Delete--I could find not a single reference that meets the criteria in WP:N. Drmies (talk) 04:36, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree -- if you know nothing about ambigrams, this company isn't notable in the least. But, most of what's on wikipedia isn't notable to most people in the world. This is one of the things that drives me crazy about Wikipedia -- people who know nothing about a particular subject making decisions.

Look here: http://relationary.wordpress.com/2007/08/12/ambigrams/: "The most awesome piece of name ambigram software is at Ambrigram.com’s Flipscript Designer"

Nikita Prokhorov (ambigramblog blogger) wrote "I have to be honest with you: after seeing some of the previous ambigram generators, I thought that they do a horrible job and were completely useless. After seeing Glyphusion at work, and seeing what it can do, my outlook changed, at least from the aesthetic standpoint. I think that Glyphusion does a great job of generating ambigrams that are ahead of any previous efforts by leaps and bounds. I also thought that ambigram generators (not yours specifically, but any previous versions as well) are just computer programs that create ambigrams purely from code. After interviewing you and learning more about the work that went into Glyphusion, I have a different opinion about your ambigram generator. I think it is an incredibly difficult project that has taken a lot of time and effort from multiple people to develop, and it definitely deserves recognition from the ambigram community." (http://ambigrams.flipscript.com/guest-interview-nikita/)

In a comment on that page, Scott Kim wrote "Wonderful to hear about Glyphusion....". So, one of the pioneers of ambigrams is not only following the company, he's comment on an interview on their blog. Hmmm, seems notable to me.

Another interesting thing: competitors that make fixed ambigram products (not customizable) have started putting the word "flipscript" on their web pages so they're findable if you google for "flipscript".

If all this isn't enough for you, then no page on Wikipedia is safe.

RoyLeban (talk) 07:03, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

One more thing, you might ask why have a page on FlipScript rather than Glyphusion. The companies are apparently owned by the same people (at least two people in common). FlipScript is the public company, while Glyphusion is the behind-the-scenes technology company. Therefore, FlipScript is both more notable and more interesting. If/when Glyphusion has hundreds of licensees (they have 4 now, including FlipScript and Mark Palmer's tattoo company), they might be worthy of a Wikipedia entry of their own.

RoyLeban (talk) 07:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

"This is one of the things that drives me crazy about Wikipedia -- people who know nothing about a particular subject making decisions." Me too, in fact... Except the problem with your argument is that I do know about ambigrams, am a member of the National Puzzler's League, etc. This article doesn't belong on Wikipedia as it has no real world notability, not within normal standards or even in the world of puzzles. It's essentially just advertising for a small, obscure site selling stuff. DreamGuy (talk) 16:02, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. Drmies (talk) 16:32, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

just advertising - yeah, if I had anything to do with the company, that would be a reasonable argument to make. You know I don't, so it's a crap argument. Being a member of the NPL is not a qualifier to know anything about ambigrams -- ambigrams are not puzzles, are completely unrelated to puzzles, and the NPL usage of the word is unrelated, as it says in this article.

This company is notable because of the technology and because they're the first to have that technology, not because they sell stuff. If you think there should be no pages about sites selling stuff, go question the Zazzle page (and many others). RoyLeban (talk) 19:13, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Earlier on, you said, "Zazzle's page is about the same size, with about the same level of content." Well, Zazzle has something FlipScript doesn't: references. It really doesn't help merely to SAY they're notable. Drmies (talk) 22:25, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. If FlipScript had coverage by Business Week and ZDNet, as Zazzle has had, then this wouldn't even be a question. But the best it has is some unknown blog and other things not even close to showing notability. DreamGuy (talk) 18:45, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Unknown blog -- that's a judgment call and you're saying your judgment is better than mine. I respectfully disagree. There are probably hundreds of thousands of pages on wikipedia whose only references are things that I've never heard of, but that doesn't mean we should delete all those pages.

It's pretty obvious what the opinions are of the people who have commented already, but it would be nice if other people weighed in. RoyLeban (talk) 20:11, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert on the subject of ambigrams, but doing some quick searches seems to indicate that this service is quite notable (whether calculating by impact on the space, or total number of ambigram designs possible). However, if the consensus should bear out that the service is unworthy of inclusion, by all means, it should be deleted. Let's improve the house, not tear it down.

Since the article is very new, Wikipedia guidelines state that the article should be given time to develop before being deleted, especially if there is no consensus for the decision to delete (see "Don't Demolish the House While it is Still Being Built"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_demolish_the_house_while_it%27s_still_being_built. Don't forget that the spirit of Wikipedia is "sharing knowledge". 12.29.227.219 (talk) 20:46, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

• Keep Just learned about this. I think it is notable but the article needs a lot of work -- not very well written -- should have more about the tech. There are lots of sites that sell things. House essay is great -- hadn't seen that before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.188.51.92 (talk) 20:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
• Delete Not enough reliable sources. Reads like spam. Fails WP:N and WP:WEB. Themfromspace (talk) 22:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
• Themfromspace, I gotta ask: How is Delaware and Hudson Canal Museum, that you just created, more notable? It is a tiny museum in a tiny town (population 627). It seems notability is in the eye of the beholder.

I do agree with comments above that the article could be written better. I used the Zazzle article as a template and that probably wasn't a good idea. I like the House analogy. If this reads like spam or marketing speak, it's because I didn't do any OR -- I took what I could find, which pretty much came from the company's web site. Somebody (not necessarily me) should probably look at the Glyphusion site for more information.

RoyLeban (talk) 00:35, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

I rewrote the article to lead with the technology, which is what makes them notable. Hopefully it no longer reads like spam. Note that I did not create EL's for the three other licensees. WP:WEB is irrelevant. I think they fit WP:N. I'll readily admit that I don't know if a tiny museum in a tiny town is notable, and one mention in an obscure publication doesn't make them notable, but I trust people who know more about the subject than I do. In this case, I'm suggesting that maybe you trust me and let me stop wasting my time on this.

Joke alert: Yeah, I know the New York Times isn't obscure. It's a joke. But obscurity is also in the eye of the beholder. One mention by one person in one travel column six years ago hardly makes it a world-famous museum. When you figure out why that's notable, please apply the same rule here.

RoyLeban (talk) 07:31, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

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.