Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Anki


 * 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   no consensus.  MBisanz  talk 19:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Anki

 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This is part of an ongoing cleanup of Wikipedia to remove articles about minor products. By precedence, me-too articles about flash-card software do not qualify when only blogs are referenced for notability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homeboyfrisco (talk • contribs) 15:28, 27 March 2009 (UTC) — Homeboyfrisco (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Precedence is not a reason to flag an article for deletion. Next time you wish to flag an article for deletion, please follow the guidelines here. Notably: "If the article is not already tagged to note a problem, apply a tag, such as, , , or ; this ensures that everyone viewing the article is aware of the problem and may act to remedy it." Finally, looking at your user page, you have few edits besides the above mention Crammage page you appear to have written and the addition of this notification for deletion. Please work on that.Porco-esphino (talk) 04:30, 31 March 2009 (UTC) -- Thanks for the pointers. I added the tags to the article as well (they were pointed out here). The precedence reference was simply to point out that the good people here at Wikipedia already had almost the same discussion for an almost identical me-too, blog-referenced product advertisement (except the lobbyist mysteriously seem to have changed positions as the products changed...)

Folks, it's silly, and completely irrelevant, to spin an ongoing clean-up as tit-for-tat. Wikipedia has too many me-too products advertising themselves here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homeboyfrisco (talk • contribs) 16:16, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

And please stop the mudslinging (especially from the Keep lobby) and phony delete-because-I'm-jealous posts.


 * I pray before the honorable people of Wikipedia that individual products' pages be immediately deleted, but links to outside webpages on the spaced repetition article be retained. As a matter of fact, it should be better if the spaced repetition article have no product links. This erects a passive barrier preventing the plebeian plenitude (particularly those that hail from the Philippines/China/Taiwan) from using these products and would comparatively increase my market value. -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

— Thomasjnewsome (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete as not notable. --Thomas —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thomasjnewsome (talk • contribs) 17:04, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep I have always used Wikipedia to find GPL and open source software which I find useful, through the category and "See Also" articles. Indeed, I discovered Anki, software which I now use, through the article on Spaced Repetition software. (i.e., this article was useful to me.)  While I don't have so many objections to removing commercial plugs for software, freely available GPL software is in the Wikipedia spirit of spreading knowledge and information!  Keep. Rucky (talk) 05:23, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * KEEP Anki is highly innovative. Being able to define multi-dimensional facts from which multiple cards can be derived is a brilliant development. I believe this is driving it's popularity, and why it's under such active development.  There's no other SRS with this advanced knowledge management mechanism.  It is particularly popular for language learning. 206.126.170.20 (talk)  —Preceding undated comment added 17:18, 27 March 2009 (UTC).


 * I respectfully disagree. SuperMemo has that "advanced knowledge management mechanism" and more. Seriously, have you tried SuperMemo? Of course, the masses would get messed up in SuperMemo's muddled UI that they would immediately quit spaced repetition (which is my ulterior motive). -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Yes I was a paid user of SuperMemo. Have you tried Anki? SuperMemo does not have the same power to organize facts and derive multiple cards from them.
 * KEEP I have never used SuperMemo myself because I am using a MacOS, and SuperMemo is Windows only. Anki is free, open-source, cross-platform (Windows, Linux, MacOS, iPhone, smartphones), translated into 16 languages, and also a very active project (there are numerous updates since I started using the program 6 months ago, and lively daily newsgroup discussions). I first learned about this software at Foolsworkshop, and the product has been through numerous updates since that review. Anki is also mentioned in here, here, and hereLd99 (talk) 11:17, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

See the discussion referenced above. There are strict requirements for notability and reliable sources -- also see requirements for no original research. Anki fails on all three, and only one failure is sufficient cause for deletion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.210.152.178 (talk) 18:16, 27 March 2009 (UTC) — 98.210.152.178 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Since it fails on all three, then there is prima facie evidence that this ridiculously rubbish of an article be immediately consigned into the dustbin of history while the rest of us make history. -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Weak delete. Yes, there's the coverage at Lifehacker, but it's only one source. —C.Fred (talk) 21:45, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't remember it clearly, but I recall that the motivation for the Anki post on Lifehacker was a previous post on SuperMemo. -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions.  ——C.Fred (talk) 21:54, 27 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep - I believe that lifehacker and other referenced review sites provide sufficient notability. If paper sources are required, there is also an article due out in a Japanese journal in June, but unfortunately that is too late to be useful for this AfD.

This AfD seems to have been created out of spite and a number of 'Keep' voters on the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Crammage page are now voting 'Delete'. (I did not participate in that AfD). I acknowledge that Anki may be a borderline case, but it would be a shame to see it go because a few people with a "if we can't be here, nobody can" attitude have tipped the scales.

Oh - and Anki was included in the April 2008 issue of the German c't magazine. It also ships with 3 of the major Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian). You can find it talked about on many language learning forums. Perhaps not arguments for notability in wikipedia's official guidelines, but a demonstration of notability none the less. 58.3.182.104 (talk) 00:39, 28 March 2009 (UTC) — 58.3.182.104 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * I respectfully disagree. Wikipedia has those guidelines for the protection of the marauding masses from rubbish. If the article is not notable according to Wikipedia's guidelines, then it must be removed regardless of its real-world notability. The less people know about these things, then less effort needed to improve my skills to compete in the global jungle. This means more leisure time for the enjoyment of Daoist philosophy, laughter of children, rustling of the wind, mountain air, Chinese poetry, and analysis of economic behavior. -- previously 119.92.180.15
 * Can you please post at least the name of the journal? Just to keep us informed. :) -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * It's called 月刊日本語. http://www.alc.co.jp/gn/index.html - but it doesn't contribute much to the discussion as the writer said her article will appear in the June edition. 58.3.182.104 (talk) 14:58, 30 March 2009 (UTC) — 58.3.182.104 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Japan-related deletion discussions.  —Fg2 (talk) 01:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

— 114.158.117.221 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete non-notable and no proper references 114.158.117.221 (talk) 06:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep; Whilst the mass of language blog reviews may not be enough to tip the notability scales, I believe this article in The Hindu lends a bit of weight. I'll continue to look for sources, but for the moment it's still a weak one. Not too impressed by the very pointy nom and the gaggle of associated SPAs, but I guess what I'm even less impressed with is the possibility of this being some corporate tit-for-tat, following the Crammage AFD.  one brave  monkey  07:35, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * NOT Lol, The Hindu and c't (both!) are AdSense-based republications of random blog posts! I think Onebravemonkey's credibility is shot at this point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.82.5 (talk • contribs) — 76.14.82.5 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Er... I would disagree with my learned, single-purpose colleague by saying that, amongst the large number of things about me which are "shot", my credibility is so far not one of them. :-D Those sources are stable, as it goes.  one brave  monkey  21:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. While the coverage in The Hindu isn't the most expansive, it tells me that coverage is out there, and coupled with the mention in c't (which I have not seen to verify), the article should be improved rather than deleted.
 * I agree with Onebravemonkey's assessment that this nomination is tit-for-tat over the deletion of Crammage; however, I don't think it's a bad-faith nomination, so I'm considering the matter solely on the issue of notability and verifiability of this article. Precendent may be useful as a guideline, but other stuff exists, so articles have to be evaluated on a stand-alone basis. —C.Fred (talk) 13:11, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * NOT See comment above about The Hindu and c't being an AdSense-based republication of random blog posts. In my mind, this questions C.Fred's credibility as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.82.5 (talk • contribs) — 76.14.82.5 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Newspaper publication has not gone so downhill as to render leading daily newspapers as "AdSense-based republications of random blog posts"; see the linked article on The Hindu. —C.Fred (talk) 21:17, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * It's in the blog section originally: http://blogs.thehindu.com/delhi/?p=14846 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.82.5 (talk • contribs) — 76.14.82.5 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Why not email J. Murali at The Hindu and ask him to pen an article about Crammage? Apparently, that's all that's necessary to keep a page. -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

— 76.201.171.128 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * Delete -- no reliable sources. Thinly vailed advertisement. --John Hwang —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.201.171.128 (talk • contribs) 18:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
 * To be fair, Anki's not really for sale, and I really appreciate the author's efforts in providing a software solution for my leaky memory. -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Keep; An Anki screenshot is the screenshot image on Wikipedia's own Spaced Repetition page, and Anki is widely recognized as the only FOSS alternative to SuperMemo. While I agree that Spaced Repetition itself may be a small field, Anki is a major player in that small field. If Anki does not meet Notability guidelines, then neither does the Spaced Repetition learning technique. In fact, the Spaced Repetition page links to Sebastian Leitner, Cecil Alec Mace, the Pimsleur language learning system, and Paul Pimsleur, all of which should be deleted for non-Notability. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dotancohen (talk • contribs) 13:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Hahaha. Then delete the screenshot image. -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

To be fair, Mnemosyne_(software) is also a notable FOSS alternative to SuperMemo, and has been around for longer than Anki - so I wouldn't call Anki the 'only' alternative.58.3.182.104 (talk) 13:43, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Truer words have never been spoken. -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs)  — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Delete. The less people know about this software, the better it is for me (my comparative advantage increases). Maybe I'll start deleting all the spaced repetition links. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.180.15 (talk) 15:01, 28 March 2009 (UTC) — 119.92.180.15 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * And now we've had an IP declare that they have a conflict of interest with the subject. —C.Fred (talk) 21:19, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Lol again. I took it as a sarcastic post from the Anki people suggesting tit-for-tat again... but perhaps they actually tried to frame someone from the clean-up effort, trying to make it look like a serious post? Yeah... let's watch that IP! ;v) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.14.82.5 (talk • contribs) — 76.14.82.5 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * It does look like sarcasm, and it's a shame the poster couldn't have worded their argument more constructively. On the other hand, I believe it is intellectually dishonest of you to label this deletion request as an "ongoing deletion effort". A page you had a vested interest in was deleted, and you turned around and submitted the Anki page for deletion the next day. This is no 'ongoing deletion effort' - it's an act of spite. Furthermore, you and the other accounts that were created at similar times and mysteriously appeared on the wiki recently, seem to have decided that Anki is to blame for your article being deleted, despite the fact that I never voted on the Crammage AFD page, and the person who deleted the Crammage page this time - and last time - had to the best of my knowledge nothing to do with Anki at all. This assumption on your part is reflected by the fact that Anki was the article you submitted for deletion, despite the fact that the Mnemosyne article has arguably fewer sources to back up its notability.58.3.182.104 (talk) 21:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC) — 58.3.182.104 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * I'm watching that IP too. But I'm too lazy to delete the SRS links. Is anyone up to the challenge? It is written:

Anki article

Sacrifice on the altar

One for the many


 * Let thy will be done, and let thou be deleted. -- previously 119.92.180.15 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.92.187.220 (talk • contribs) — 119.92.187.220 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

I have been a user of Anki for several years now and this is one of the very few pieces of software that I have unfailingly used every day. I'm not alone in having this experience and that in itself makes this software (and other spaced repetition software) seem notable to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrightak (talk • contribs) 14:25, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep; When it comes to articles on pieces of software, surely the best determinant of notability would be the size of the user base. I suppose it's possible to have a notable piece of software with a very small user base but this would be an exception to the norm. With that in mind, if you're going to have articles on spaced repetition software, and software for language learning, one of the best ways to decide which piece of software gets an article, would be to look at the number of users it has. You can then decide on a minimum and if Anki falls below that minimum then the article should be deleted along with all of the other software articles which fail that test. I suspect that Anki has more users than crammage.
 * — Wrightak (talk&#32;• contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Delete - The brief article in The Hindu mentioned above is the only reliable source that comments on Anki, so far as I can tell. Lifehacker, as one of the Gawker Media blogs, does *not* look to be a safe bet as a reliable source, and we have no article on the reviewer Kevin Purdy, so Wikipedia does not recognize him yet as an expert. If Anki goes into wider use it may eventually attract mainstream coverage that would justify an article, but I don't think it is there yet. The article on spaced repetition seems OK because it is well-sourced. Unfortunately it often happens that FOSS software, even when it is well-regarded by a number of people, just doesn't get noticed by mainstream media. However, Ubuntu *does* make the grade, so the more successful FOSS products do wind up getting articles. EdJohnston (talk) 22:06, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Anki is the best and most fast developing flashcard program. This overview and discussion proves it: http://foolsworkshop.com/reviews/anki-review. And this program is free. It's a must application for everyone learning a foreign language. It's the only application where I can learn several languages at once using spaced repetition algorithm. Don't delete the page about it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.145.158.18 (talk • contribs) 03:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * — 213.145.158.18 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Sorry I can't log in, I'm in the library and I don't know my wp password! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.68.4.151 (talk) 09:53, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep - Anki is widely used in our university. Some people use Supermemo but that program does not run on Ubunutu, so about half the university uses Anki. Not a day goes by that I don't open the program or hear someone talking about it. I find it unusual that it could be "not notable". The Cunning Linguist website had an Anki article recently, if you want something solid: http://www.cunning-linguist.co.uk/anki/


 * Delete as no original research.--Christian Metter


 * External references okay to allow in the original SuperMemo article. While none of the products advertising themselves here warrant a separate article, I think an external link for each will allow readers to find more or less equivalent implementations. Thus existence of a product is notable, while the marketing material about the product is not notable. (This may also calm some of the emotions around here...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.189.162.6 (talk) 17:12, 30 March 2009 (UTC)


 * This user once tried to blank out the Anki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anki&diff=prev&oldid=274253326 58.3.182.104 (talk) 22:57, 30 March 2009 (UTC) — 58.3.182.104 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.


 * Keep per the spirit of the Notability policies for articles on open-source software discussion on WikiEN-l, and the arguments brought therein. -- Dandv (talk) 20:45, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

So guys, what's the consensus? --119.92.182.172 (talk) 12:25, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't see any guideline arguments for keeping it, only blog posts and original research. I say delete the article, but create external references in the SuperMemo article that describes the algorithm implemented. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homeboyfrisco (talk • contribs) 15:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete - the comment just above contains a link to a forum post, but deceptively displays the words 'notability policies.' Wikipedia does not have special treatment of open-source project advertisements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homeboyfrisco (talk • contribs) 15:35, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Duplicate "delete" struck since this commenter is the nominator. —C.Fred (talk) 16:06, 1 April 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.