Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Windows 10 version history

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. Clear consensus to keep this. It may be in need of some cleanup or a split or two, but that's not for AfD to solve or a reason to delete. I'll note that most !votes discuss the utility of the page rather than notability, so perhaps this isn't as resounding a keep as mere counting might suggest, but still, a strong keep for the content. ~ Amory (u • t • c) 00:55, 17 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Windows 10 version history[edit]

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This article is going to get longer and longer as new Windows 10 updates come out. What can we do when the article reaches 500 kilobytes?? This article might violate "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of facts." Georgia guy (talk) 23:59, 9 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. All the sources are primary and therefore this list fails WP:RELEASENOTES. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 00:37, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That guideline is for the release notes for software projects where each release is not notable (i.e. not described in reliable third-party sources independent of the subject). Each Windows 10 release has had non-trivial mentions in reliable third party sources, e.g. [1] (Windows 10 1803) [2] (Windows 10 1709) [3] (Windows 10 1703) etc. Indeed, the guidelink you link to says "Use reliable third-party (not self-published or official) sources in articles dealing with software updates to describe the versions listed or discussed in the article" (emphasis mine) Samboy (talk) 17:18, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This is a very important report of Microsoft Windows Operating System. Aainitio (talk) 00:49, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How?? What will you do when this article reaches 300 kilobytes?? (Feel free to replace this with a larger number if you prefer.) Georgia guy (talk) 00:50, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Ok This seems a trouble. But... What will us do if this article were summarilly deleted? Aainitio (talk) 01:38, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. MT Train^Talk 05:56, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but cleanup - we do not need rather irrelevant information about preview or Beta Builds. --Denniss (talk) 12:53, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
...but we do need... Georgia guy (talk) 13:06, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - There will be a day Win10 will be replaced with Win11 and that is when the size of the entry is decided.

I found the way the information is presented very useful and accessible. This entry gave exactly the information I was after helping me to solve an issue where otherwise I would have been left in the woods. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.151.114 (talk) 13:32, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure there never will be such a day. Windows 10 will always be the newest version of Windows according to what Microsoft made official. Georgia guy (talk) 14:18, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Snow Keep Why is this even in WP:AfD?? I was Googling Windows update history and was shocked to see this AfD. Knowing which Windows 10 versions exist is very useful information. Finding references from reliable sources is trivial; here's one from a 20 second Google search for "Windows 10 1803" (the version running on my laptops): "Here's what's new in Windows 10 April 2018 Update". ZDNet. We do not delete articles because they might get too long; we split them (Windows 10 updates from 2015-2019; Windows 10 updates from 2020-2024; etc.) Deletion is for non-notable topics; Windows 10 updates, used by millions of users, are obviously notable. Samboy (talk) 16:57, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep there are plenty of secondary sources on the topic. Splitting by years (I imagine near years might make sense to sever along major updates) is the way to go. Deciding what size each article should be I would leave to those most interested in the article. Nosebagbear (talk) 19:04, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be a good solution. Will there be another better? Aainitio (talk) 21:17, 10 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I agree with the above, I use this page for reference often, but perhaps clean up the References, that section makes up most of the page and is a mess! 206.123.216.105 (talk) 17:02, 11 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I'm sure of great interest to some, and an extremely notable product, with this page keeping the more detailed information pertaining to it off the main Windows 10 page, and attempts to be informative and encyclopaedic.Nick Moyes (talk) 00:00, 12 June 2018 (UTC) [reply]
That's to keep the Windows 10 page from being too big. But we need a way to keep this page from being too big; it will just get bigger and bigger every time a new build of Windows 10 comes out. Georgia guy (talk) 00:13, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
We do not delete articles because they might get too long; we split them (Windows 10 updates from 2015-2019; Windows 10 updates from 2020-2024; etc. — I have helpfully already created those articles) Deletion is for non-notable topics; Windows 10 updates, used by millions of users, are obviously notable. Samboy (talk) 01:41, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This really seems to be a good — probably, the best — solution. Will there be another better? Aainitio (talk) 02:29, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 08:00, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This information is extremely helpful when installing Windows 10 from an ISO and winver reports Build 10240 but it is known retroactively as 1507. This was the first hit on Google and answer my question perfectly along with additional releases so I know how far behind this system is. --64.141.165.2 (talk) 14:56, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment @Samboy: - the article is clearly too long at its current length - I think waiting until 2019 to launch a break would leave it too late. It would be the easiest to get user approval for (since it doesn't require any difficult break-point discussion) but would leave a very large article. I think 2015-17 ( that's inclusive: 2015-2018 exclusive) makes more sense, i.e. end of last year.

In any case, these are post-AfD discussions, there is a clear solution to the article's only issue, and that issue didn't warrant deletion in any case Nosebagbear (talk) 08:49, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No one needs the approval of the Wikipedia bureaucratic committee to split up an article if it’s getting too big. Just do it! I know this isn’t the Wikipedia of 2005, but, really, whoever goes to the effort of splitting the article gets to decide how to split it up. This isn’t a hot button article about religion, politics, or sex—so I don’t think people are going to make any significant controversy. Samboy (talk) 08:00, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Very true - I can't imagine any split you (or another) implementing causing significant controversy if you just went for it. My point is just to stop a future argument that the articles are still too big because they've been severed into too large chunks. Nosebagbear (talk) 08:31, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly... But, just remembering: "Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." King James Version (KJV)

I am sure that future things can be dealt with when they are really present. Wikipedia shows that Wikipedians are very competent to offer the best solution in all cases. Aainitio (talk) 12:46, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof" - generally a dangerous viewpoint to hold in life I would say, @Aainitio:! "Wikipedia shows that Wikipedians are very competent to offer the best solution in all cases." - A spectacularly optimistic POV given past experience with the site, I feel!

Our contrasting world viewpoints aside, that was just my advice on article size breaking - it's not an article I'm linked with, nor is size-splitting a speciality of mine, so we'll see what happens then. While there is a delete !vote at the top, we've really hit snow grounds now. Nosebagbear (talk) 14:05, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I refer to this article when I need to and I find it helpful. I don't agree with the purpose of deleting the article. Just split it in different page and sub-page and that's it. RafaelS1979 (talk) 23:19, 12 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and edit - The article is fluffy, but appears to satisfy an encyclopedic interest. I like to saw logs! (talk) 01:46, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep some of the tables may be indiscriminate and should be removed, but the article's topic as a whole is fine. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:00, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as this information is very helpful and useful, sort of like technical world history. In 10-years when we find that Win10 PC running 16299.248 we will know what it means without having to read 10 pages on a Microsoft site. If the article can not grow larger than 500KB then perhaps offload some data into new sub-articles or trim out extraneous details from this main article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ParrFour (talk • contribs) 16:57, 14 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Snowball Keep as it has been and continues to be a very useful resource. There are other, varied ways to resolve excessive article length concerns. Timeshift (talk) 10:29, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. WP:AFD is not the place to remedy articles that are too long, unwieldy, or poorly written. Fiachra10003 (talk) 14:23, 16 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but split... this article into suitable subsets, so that such subsets refer, for example, to chosen arguments, such as time (year, semester or other), edition or otherwise. Thus, the current article would have only the initial part and the evolution table ("Overview").

This, in fact, has already been [very well] suggested by other wiki-editors, such as Nosebagbear and Samboy, who are much more competent and experienced than I am to do so. Aainitio (talk) 14:56, 16 June 2018 (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.