Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hotline Communications

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. Mkdw ^talk 04:46, 19 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hotline_Communications[edit]

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I have been talking with the creator of the page that suggested an AfD instead of proposing it for deletion. In my opinion, this article has notability issues. The references given come from non notable websites. I have been looking on Google but didn't find anything really notable. Puda (talk) 15:43, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I have also done a google search and found no proof of notability of the topic.--Jeffrd10 (talk) 17:38, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This was a fairly popular P2P file sharing system on the Mac in the 90s. Hotline was the subject of two articles at Salon.com [2], [3] and a 2013 retrospective article at Macworld [4]. These are reliable sources and in depth. In addition, there is a paragraph at MaximumPC. An in depth blog (probably not reliable) is at FileShareFreak. These AngelList and docshut links by one of the founders of Hotline points to other possible reliable sources, but I haven't hunted them down. There appear to be multiple in depth independent reliable sources that demonstrate notability per WP:GNG. The article could use some inline citations, but has no insurmountable problems. A notable topic and surmountable article problems suggest keeping the article. --Mark viking (talk) 23:08, 12 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:52, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:52, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - coverage identified by Mark viking is sufficient to establish notability. -- Whpq (talk) 17:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Yes, the sources found by Mark viking are adequate. It can take some work to find sources to verify details about older software, but this software was important enough that we should keep digging for better sources instead of deleting the article. I had a hunch that Wired probably covered it, and I searched it and found these articles: "Street Cred: Hot Connection" (1997), "Hotline Reinvents the BBS" (1998), "Still Plenty of Music Out There" (2001). I also found some descriptions of Hotline Connect in papers like this one. Dreamyshade (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep In addition to the sources provided by Dreamyshade and Mark viking, a quick check on Google Books found this, a page from the book Maximum Security discussing Hotline. The legal case involving Hinkley, the creator of Hotline, is also mentioned in Australian Intellectual Property Law, a textbook on the subject, as well as in McCallum's Top Workplace Relations Cases, a casebook on employment law. At best, one might argue that the subject of the legal case is distinct from the subject of the software, and that one might be a coatrack for the other. But I think that there's definitely enough sources to present a useful little article on the history of this software. It does need a bit of a tidy up though. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:06, 18 December 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.