Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Computer Security Audits

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus.Woohookitty 23:36, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Note: The votes are: 4 to keep, 3 to delete (including the nominator), 2 others (basically transwiki, merge). -- BD2412 talk 23:46, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Computer Security Audits
Whatever this is, it doesn't seem to be anything resembling an encyclopedia article. It is extremely idiosyncratic, contains a great deal of "how-to" (see What Wikipedia is not), and seems to suffer from "article ownership" syndrome. FOo 7 July 2005 16:55 (UTC)
 * Security audits are an important element of business computing security. But this article needs a significant rewrite. Plus the title should be "Computer security audits" as in a process, rather than a name. Delete :) &mdash; RJH 7 July 2005 17:08 (UTC)
 * I have moved it to Computer security audit, there is no need for it to be plural.--Fenice 7 July 2005 19:27 (UTC)

Author AlMac explains:
 * I came to Wiki about a week ago as a newbie and started writing Security breaches, then was told that I had failed to achieve NPOV, so I started to try to rewrite to fix that, and it soon became obvious to me that my efforts to fix POV were becoming too weasle-wordy, so I stepped back and thought about how best to define some of the ingredients of Computer security that are essential to avoiding Security breaches in the first place, this being one of them. An enterprise that does regular Computer Security Audits is much less likely to sustain Security breaches or have Computer insecurity.
 * My intention here is to define how computer security audits fit into a larger picture, giving examples of how tools for that purpose are available for a diversity of platforms and software applications, then make this one of several main articles within Security breaches.
 * Computer security audit is a noun. It is an iterative process.  There is little point in doing one audit.  It is like ISO.  You set a standard, you test that you have met the standard.  Either there is something to fix, or it is time to raise the bar on the standard.
 * Additional relevant comments by AlMac intentions at
 * Talk:AlMac
 * Talk:Computer_security_audit
 * Talk:Security breaches
 * Please help me with what I am apparently doing wrong, rather than lead me to conclude that this community is not for me. AlMac 7 July 2005 18:14 (UTC)
 * The problem is not you personally. The problem is that this article (and Security breaches for that matter) is not an encyclopedia article, and doesn't seem to even be trying to be. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Every Wikipedia article is to be an encyclopedia article -- not an outline, a collection of comments, a discussion forum, or something else.
 * By analogy: If you enter a painting contest and submit a sculpture instead of a painting, expect to be disqualified. It may be a very good sculpture, but it's not what the contest is about. That's a goal of VfD -- removing things which are not encyclopedia articles from the Wikipedia article space.
 * Please read over some of our featured articles. Pay attention to the writing styles and tones that they use. Go thou and do likewise. --FOo 7 July 2005 18:35 (UTC)
 * I notice that there is more than one kind of Wiki out there. Are you able to direct me to one which welcomes what I think I am trying to do:
 * Security in the Computer world seems to be lacking all over the place, but solutions do exist, that many people seem not to be aware of. I want to try to describe the reality, the problems, and show a diversity of potential solutions. I guess that is your sculpture parallel, in which I think I am doing a painting, and you think I am doing a sculture, so perhaps one solution is for you to redirect me to where sculpture is welcome. AlMac 7 July 2005 18:48 (UTC)
 * I have already been redirected once before I came to Wikipedia. Dave Gibbs invited the OS/400 community to a new Wiki.  I joined and started enthusiastically posting stuff that I was interested in, only to learn that he did not want Computer security stuff not relevant to the AS/400.  My interest in Computer security is bigger than any one platform, so I looked for a Wiki that was platform neutral, but perhaps made a mistake in selecting this one.AlMac 7 July 2005 18:54 (UTC)
 * There are other areas where I am ignorant. Perhaps someone could add to my talk page collection of places to study, what is meant by ideiosyncratic and article ownership.  Surely someone has to start every article, before other people join in? AlMac 7 July 2005 22:07 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a valid important topic, I am surprised it is not covered yet. It was listed for deletion by a newbie user whose first edit was on June 30th 2005, two hours after the author, also a newbie user, had started it and while he was obviously still working on it. I would say that is bad style but I don't want to bite a newcomer. Give the author time to work this out. The article needs some work, but the cleanup is not hard to do. --Fenice 7 July 2005 19:39 (UTC)
 * Wow, I haven't been called a "newbie user" recently. I've been working on Wikipedia since March 2002. Maybe you haven't been here long enough to know that a user's contributions list can span several pages? :)
 * A vote for deletion, by the way, doesn't mean that a particular topic is not worthy of being covered in Wikipedia. It means that a particular article is not appropriate to Wikipedia. I agree with you that computer security audits should be covered in Wikipedia. However, I cannot agree that this particular article is anything resembling an encyclopedia article. Wikipedia is not (as User:AlMac seems to believe, above) simply a free-for-all wiki -- it is an encyclopedia project. --FOo 7 July 2005 21:21 (UTC)
 * You are right, FOo. I don't know why your earlier edits weren't shown (I can see them now). But then you should know not to bite newcomers and your listing within a few hours was bad style. Also I wonder about your misconception of article ownership? According to the edit-history of Computer security audit you haven't tried to fix the problem (or if the system is swallowing edits again, I can't be sure you didn't). Article ownership would mean that someone or usually a group of editors won't let anyone else edit and just revert without much of a discussion. --Fenice 7 July 2005 21:27 (UTC)
 * Having been on Newpages patrol before, I don't think tossing something non-encyclopedic onto VfD counts as "biting newcomers" -- it counts as cleaning things out which don't belong on Wikipedia. If we refused to delete non-encyclopedic materials just because they were written by newcomers, we would be flooded with non-encyclopedic material. --FOo 8 July 2005 00:58 (UTC)
 * You wrote: "A vote for deletion, by the way, doesn't mean that a particular topic is not worthy of being covered in Wikipedia. It means that a particular article is not appropriate to Wikipedia." What exactly makes you think so? From what I read on Deletion policy if anything the opposite is true. From what I can tell with previous VfDs (granted, I'm new to this) the actual deletion policy as carried out is something in between.--Moritz 7 July 2005 21:42 (UTC)
 * The first criterion under "Problems that may require deletion" is ... (drum roll please) ... "Is not suitable for Wikipedia (see WP:NOT)." That refers to the content of the article, not the topic. --FOo 8 July 2005 00:58 (UTC)


 * Strong Keep. What Fenice said. Project2501a 7 July 2005 19:44 (UTC)
 * Move? to Wikibooks? Almac seems like he has alot of useful information to share, and is up to the task of writing it. If the issue we have it the nature of the information, as it seems from the comments I've read, I don't see why AlMac doesn't start his very own Wikibook. - FabioB 7 July 2005 22:57 (UTC)
 * Not a bad idea. Material which isn't an encyclopedia article simply doesn't belong on Wikipedia, but it could perhaps be expanded into a work of some other sort. Since a good section of this article is "how-to", and much of the rest is a bare outline made of bullet points, perhaps that would be a good place to put it. --FOo 8 July 2005 00:58 (UTC)
 * Delete I am actually saying transwiki as I think that AlMac has a lot to contribute. IDon'tLikeBeingJustOnePerson 8 July 2005 03:50 (UTC)
 * Transwiki to Wikibooks, plus cleanup; Merge key points from this article into to Computer security audit (cleaning up this article as well); Redirect to Computer security audit. The article has lots of good information in it, but isn't really an encyclopedia article. --NicholasTurnbull 21:49, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. The article is not encyclopedic, but the topic definitely is, so no need to delete, the cleanup template is quite enough. KissL 09:06, 12 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep. The cleanup template should remain. To resolve the cleanup issue, most of the details of the article would probably be better put into a Wikibook. But let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater and delete, so my vote is for a strong keep. MShonle 15:35, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks again ... I do intend to continue the cleanup of Computer security audit and Security breaches to meet the Wiki style, then I have LOTS more stuff I intend to add to both, and I will defer to judgement of non-newbies which of my writings should transfer to another wiki and which one. I have also promised to work on Trade Military Refugee Usability and other topics here that interest me. AlMac 17:56, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I have had an explosion of work the last 2 weeks, but anticipate that by middle of August, if not sooner, it should clear up. I am juggling urgent changes to approx a dozen programs, three of which I have in testing right now to see if they Ok yet, and when I get to a break point with them, I have unfinished work with a mass database migration ... like a mini-conversion project. AlMac 17:56, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Several people here told me about Wiki books. I been looking around there.  It seems to me that Wikibooks not as rich as Wikipedia in volume of topics, while Wikibooks goes to greater depth of subject matter, like chapters of a text book.
 * I used what y"all taught me to try my hand at a Wiki book. My first effort there is SQL/400.  I will see if this gets a reaction there that is positive or negative.  It seems to me that many people there are using the kind of listing writing style that I got my hands slapped for here.  I do not know if this means that different styles are welcomed at different Wikis, or if what I have seen so far are all works under development that won't be that style when all the content gets there. AlMac 22:44, 16 July 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.