Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MIRCStats

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. Sadly - because the article has been rewritten really well - the arguments for deletion, as summarized by Megeboz, are compelling and I must give them determinative weight per WP:DGFA. While the article is now verifiable, the thorough discussion shows that notability (as determined by significant coverage in reliable sources) is lacking. I'll userfy this on request.  Sandstein  05:11, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

MIRCStats

MIRCStats (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

Non notable software with no reliable sources to back any potential claim to notability Theserialcomma (talk) 02:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. No notability shown for this MIRC log analyzer. Corpx (talk) 02:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- TexasAndroid (talk) 03:28, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

• Keep Two book sources;[1][2][3] almost 50,000 Ghits - refimprove Chzz ► 04:17, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

there is only one book source listed here, and it is a single, trivial mention. not exactly WP:Notable material. the other book you listed, doesn't have mIRCStats at all. you also put a third link, which is really the same exact url as the second. Theserialcomma (talk) 04:53, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delete Trivial mentions do not make for substantial coverage of the subject. Miami33139 (talk) 19:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I've looked at the added references. I still say this does not pass notability. Miami33139 (talk) 20:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Keep I've rewritten and expanded this article and it now makes a firm assertion of notability. It now contains more than enough references to satisfy WP:N, including a college textbook:
  Gaise, Ted J.; Schreiner, Anthony E. (2009-04-01). A Guide to Conducting Online Research (1st ed.). SAGE Publications. p. 165. ISBN 1412922909.
  The nominator clearly did not attempt to fix this article when plenty of references are available. Google.com alone turns up almost 85,000 results[4] and Google images turns up over 1,700 results[5] Contrary to User:Theserialcomma and User:Miami33139's assertions above, plenty of information is available for this subject but it is clear neither individual desired to actually improve the article. WP:BEFORE states: "If the article can be fixed through normal editing, then it is not a good candidate for AfD." The WP:GNG also states: "Multiple sources are generally preferred", but it does not state that they are required, only that they be reliable.
  --Tothwolf (talk) 18:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• None of those give "significant coverage", as they're all mostly just trivial mentions. Which references specifically give this script significant coverage? Corpx (talk) 19:05, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• First, this isn't a script, this is a standalone program and in fact this was the very first statistical program ever written to process IRC logs (many other similar programs have since been written but only a handful have become popular enough to meet WP:N). The textbook I've referenced and mentioned above and the information in the Critical reception section of the article make it very clear that this software is very much notable. Tothwolf (talk) 19:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Again, none of those qualify as significant coverage from a reliable source. Corpx (talk) 20:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Keep per rewrite by Tothwolf; the book reference, as well as the section entitled "Critical reception" indicate to me that this is notable enough for inclusion. NW (Talk) 18:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment no notability has been shown. all these 'sources' are self-published, or irrelevant download links. where is the independent notability? a single trivial mention in one book? Theserialcomma (talk) 20:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
    • Comment for closing admin: no notability has been shown. There are still no reliable sources. The article has been filled with self-published fluff in an attempt to make it look legit. Please keep this in mind when counting votes vs counting the valid points of the voters. Theserialcomma (talk) 21:03, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
      • Um, thanks. I really don't appreciate being called a "per above" voter; I really don't think that was necessary. As for the article itself: I saw notability in Tothwolf's comment about how this one program revolutionized IRC logging, which when backed up even with one book, is enough for inclusion in my eyes. That textbook there certainly fulfills WP:Verifiability. NW (Talk) 21:20, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

of which text/book are you referring? the one with the single, trivial mention? does that really count as substantial coverage? a single, trivial mention, only one time, in some random book == notability? Theserialcomma (talk) 23:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Keep While the previous version was in a sorry state, and could be deleted for lack of context/unclear notability, the recent expansion by Tothwolf is very well written, neutral, and gives context to users unfamiliar with the program. I'm frankly surprised at the 52,000 downloads for an IRCstat program (and that's from one source only), which seem to be huge numbers for a program like this. This, coupled to the references mentioning mIRCstat as a tool for doing online research, seem more than enough to establish notability. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 02:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and a clarification to TheSerialComma who seems to misunderstand what reliable sources mean. Reliable sources don't necessarily excluded self-published sources. If that's what it meant, then you might as well tried to delete all infoboxes on the various processors out there who uses manufacturer datasheets. Primary material is even desired when it comes to technical details. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 02:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

perhaps you misunderstand WP:Notable, the part about significant third party coverage. mircstat's website is not significant third party coverage. a trivial mention in one book is not significant third party coverage. notability has not been shown per wikipedia's standards. Theserialcomma (talk) 04:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Notability isn't established through mIRCstat's own website and I never claimed that, so I don't know why you're bringing that up. Third party coverage is a matter of opinion, and in my opinion, due to the technical nature of the program, the third party coverage shown here (CNET, mIRCLog, scholarly endorsement) is sufficient. I also wonder why you're so concerned about deleting this page. You're trying to dismiss primary sources as "self-published fluff" (which they clearly aren't in this context), and you're trying to directly influence the closing admin because things don't look like they'll go your away after the expansion of the article. Wikipedia doesn't gain anything by deleting well written and neutral articles about an IRC stat tracking program (which seems to be as notable as psig). Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 11:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

CNet merely lists the file for download and the "description" comes directly from the author of the program. That is not significant coverage from an independent source. MIRClog is seems to be another log analyzer and I'm not sure how that warrants any "significant coverage" to MIRCStats. A study used a log analyzer to aggregate some data, and that's it. That is not significant coverage. Significant coverage means the study was about the topic in question (MIRCstats). I searched the PDF for MIRCStats and was unable to find even trivial mentions of MIRCStats. It's definitely a well written in its current state, but it is also advertisement for a program that doesnt pass wikipedia's notability guideline. Even with the rewrite, absolutely no "significant coverage" of the program from independent, reliable sources have been found. The whole point of the notability guideline is defeated if an article is written solely from references from primary sources and trivial mentions Corpx (talk) 18:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Strong Delete. In spite of the earlier assurances, I wasn't able to find any reliable sources with nontrivial coverage. None of the references provided on MIRCStats help to establish notability. "A Guide to Conducting Online Research", viewable through Amazon[6] does not seem to include any references to MIRCStats. Software depositories like CNET only offer trivial program descriptions and cannot possibly be considered reliable sources indicative of notability. Several Google searches didn't reveal any in-depth program reviews or other sources of significant coverage. This book cannot possibly be counted as a valid source (in fact, I think it should be banned as a reference), since, according to its own preface, its review of MiRCStats was taken directly from Wikipedia. — Rankiri (talk) 18:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Comment:Either you didn't read the article or you are attempting to be misleading.
    Amazon [7] does not index even a fraction of this book per the restrictions from the publisher. They include the covers, TOC, parts of the index, and a random sampling of pages. This is standard practice due to the fact that this is a textbook and the publisher wants students to buy the book vs printing screencaps from amazon.com.
    While Google Books also does not allow for viewing the individual pages, this search result for "mircstats" turns up result #4 A Guide to Conducting Online Research page 165.
    This book that you linked above was not used a a reference for the article and is not included in the article in any form or fashion.
    The "CNET" link is for Download.com, which is a reliable in the context in which it is used: "...with Download.com reporting over 52,000 downloads since August 05, 1998." As of right now that count is up to 52,790, which is massive for this type of software. It isn't that surprising really, given that this was the first IRC log statistics program ever written.
    --Tothwolf (talk) 19:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • How about the ~3600 channels that produces and publishes their stats. Is that notability enough? Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 19:49, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• As a registered customer of Amazon.com, I'm perfectly able to search throughout the entire book. The book contains the following quote that has nothing to do with the software in question:

"Some applications, such as mIRC, allow you to create logs as text-only files.These logs are easily identifiable as #yourchannel_160 222007.log (http://www.nic.fi/~mauvinen/mircstats/mircstatsfaq.html#multifiles, accessed 9 April 2007). In addition, you can search through log files..."

Page 165 is the "web links" appendix that only lists the same URL. As for your other objections, I suggest you take a look at WP:BIGNUMBER, WP:GOOGLEHITS, WP:WEB and WP:PRODUCT. — Rankiri (talk) 19:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• ... oh, that's how they do this! Definite keep. DS (talk) 19:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• I'm not sure about them, but that's how I do it when I see somebody working his way around WP:N and WP:RS. — Rankiri (talk) 19:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
  • there seems to be an influx of editors who are voting keep without addressing the notability and reliable, third party, independent coverage issues. this is very strange behavior, almost as if some people are voting keep regardless of wikipedia's policies. i hope that the closing admin will see that some votes here should not be considered as valid as others when they do not address this article's failure to achieve notability, which is a core standard of a wikipedia article. Theserialcomma (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Keep 52,000 downloads isn't much. Far more popular software of this type out there. But it is mentioned in different books. [8], so that counts as notable, according to the suggested guidelines. Dream Focus 01:20, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the guidelines want books about the subject. Nor merely being mentioned in one paragraph of one book. Miami33139 (talk) 01:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You might want to re-read the guidelines as your statement above seems to indicate that you are not all that familiar with them. The guidelines want reliable sources, which depending on the context and material could contain anything from one sentence to a page or even a whole book. References do not have to be print, and given the subject of this article, many of the references will not be in print. As Headbomb already mentioned above, a self-published source is not necessarily an unreliable source. On the contrary, when dealing with technical subjects, and in this specific case, software, is it perfectly acceptable to reference primary material when describing the operation or features of something. The information in the current article is very much verifiable, accurate and is written from a neutral point of view. Tothwolf (talk) 18:40, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Please reread my earlier objections. The books you mentioned borrow their information from Wikipedia and cannot be viewed as legitimate sources. — Rankiri (talk) 01:38, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• ...and the Websters books you are objecting to were not used as references. It could be said however, that the Webster's editors felt the original WP material reliable enough to include in print, although using those particular books as references would have been akin to Ouroboros. Tothwolf (talk) 18:29, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• The recommendation was based on the false assumption that the abovementioned books may be used as legitimate sources. WP:V clearly states that texts that mirror Wikipedia's content are prohibited. — Rankiri (talk) 18:50, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• ...and again, the Websters books were not used as references. You should note however, that the Websters books are not mirrors of Wikipedia content; they tend to use said content as a base but they are usually summaries and are often quite different from the article that they use material from. They may also include other content not present in the Wikipedia article which they took material from too. Tothwolf (talk) 19:06, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

• Keep mabdul 08:09, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Hi there. Thank you for expressing your opinion here. Per WP:NOREASON, could you please give a summary of why you believe the article should be kept? Votes without reasons are likely to be discounted by the closing administrator. NW (Talk) 17:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delete due to lack of significant coverage in reliable sources. Many of the sources contained in the article are not independent sources, and therefore can't be used to establish notability. Other sources (such as A Guide to Conducting Online Research) contain only trivial mentions of the software. Without coverage focused on the software itself in independent sources, the article does not meet any notablility guideline. –Megaboz (talk) 14:23, 11 June 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.