Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DeSmuME (2nd nomination)


 * 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. Michig (talk) 06:07, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

DeSmuME
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Fails WP:GNG. I am unable to find significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. There are plenty of sources in the article, but they're all primary, unreliable (no editorial oversight, download sites, how-to guides, etc.), or (probably) reliable but trivial. (See Talk:DeSmuME for discussions about source issues.) I looked for sources using the WPVG custom Google searches (WP:VG/LRS) and could only find more of the same. The last AfD (which resulted in delete) was just over six months ago and no new sources have emerged since then. Woodroar (talk) 02:18, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Video games-related deletion discussions. Woodroar (talk) 02:20, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Woodroar (talk) 02:23, 26 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete - Shamelessly reposting my ref analysis from the talk page:
 * Reviewed version: Special:Diff/855648763
 * Refs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 are primary
 * Refs 6, 10, 12 amd 13 are just code repositories, download pages, specs sheets
 * Ref 11 is credited as a republication of ref 9
 * Refs 9, 14 and 16 probably don't pass reliability standards
 * Refs 9 (and 11), 15, 16, 17 are "how-to" guides with barely any critical commentary or original thought to cite
 * Refs 15 and 16 are also listicles
 * Ref 18 is an odd one, but it's pretty much just a passing mention of Desmume as the software they're using to test the Linux stuff that is the actual topic of the presentation
 * Ref 8 is probably the only reliable one with critical commentary of Desmume but it's also extremely brief.
 * My conclusion: article subject as it currently is does not pass WP:GNG because it fails to meet the WP:GOLDENRULE of in-depth significant coverage in independent reliable sources. Ben · Salvidrim!   &#9993;  02:26, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

If anyone could direct me to some resources to help explain “reliable sources” and “significant coverage” in more detail I would be very grateful, please post the information on my user talk page rather than the AfD discussion here, and please do it in a polite, constructive way that doesn’t make it sound like I did anything wrong, although I suppose that by creating this article I DID do something wrong. I will try not to make the same mistake again. I really don’t want to end up back here again with another AfD for another article I wrote, with that article getting deleted too, that would show that I haven’t learned anything about how exactly notability on Wikipedia works, and I really want to learn but it is very confusing. I am on the autistic spectrum and take things very literally and do not think quite the same way as most people so for me personally it is perhaps harder than for the average person to understand the General Notability Guideline (WP:GNG), although I am not really sure, maybe this is also hard for average people too, I would not know since I am not one of them, I would say that I have a bit of a thick skull when it comes to certain things sinking in so I need to put in extra effort to learn them. Thank you everyone and have a wonderful day, and I hope that at least one of you please explains this to me on my user talk page, you can write something yourself or just post some handy links if there already is a detailed explanation of what reliable sources and significant coverage mean. Although those are really 2 separate issues, the reliableness of a source and the significance of the coverage appearing in that source, and I must admit my understanding of both issues is rudimentary at best at the current time, something I hope we can remedy and thereby prevent this exact situation from happening again with another article. For now I suppose I shall proceed with extreme caution regarding the issue of creating new articles and hold myself to higher standards than I did when I wrote the DeSmuME article. But exactly what standards? For instance on the subject of a video game emulator, what is the most reliable source of information on emulators? Does ANY reliable source on that subject even exist, by Wikipedia standards? If not, does that mean that ALL articles on emulators fail to meet notability standards? When I try and examine the standards of Woodroar and Salvidrim, I know that they draw the line regarding sources in a stricter place than I do, but just HOW strict are we talking here? Can you do this for me, can you look at the page List of video game emulators, pick whichever emulator there sounds the most obscure that you have never heard of, look at its Wikipedia page, go through the sources, show me which ones do and don’t establish notability and why, and tell me about it on my user talk page? Because, my suspicion is, for pretty much all of them, if you held those articles to the same standard as this one, poof, the articles would vanish, none of the sources cited would be good enough to establish notability. And then what? Should we delete all of the articles on emulators that are not notable? Or do the other ones meet notability standards, are some of their sources actually ones that satisfy the General Notability Guideline? You see, while I don’t disagree with you about the notability standards, it seems you are not applying those standards consistently. I could force the issue by nominating every single existing video game emulator article for deletion and seeing what happens, but honestly speaking, I am quite fond of emulators as well as the articles on them. I like the article I wrote about DeSmuME and the articles about the other emulators too. But what is good for the goose is good for the gander. There are 34 emulators linked to from List of video game emulators, including DeSmuME. It is my contention that the vast majority of them, if indeed DeSmuME is not notable, are likewise not notable, if you look at their sources and check to see if any meet WP:GNG. When I added the DeSmuME article, it was definitely better-sourced than several of them. So, I would like to see these standards being applied a bit more consistently. And regarding the possibility that Wikipedia might cease to have any articles at all about video game emulators, while that would be sad and all, there are plenty of other wikis including several that are specifically about emulation. Anyway, could you all please look into this? I understand that naturally if I create an article where the previous article was deleted less than a year ago for lack of notability, this arouses suspicion regarding notability, suspicion that does not exist in the same way for articles that have just been sitting there for years under the radar without anyone seriously considering whether they are notable or not. But, having looked at many of those articles and their sources, I have suspicions that they are equally lacking in notability to this one that I wrote. So if you are really going to enforce WP:GNG so strictly, fine, I agree with you, but try and apply the rules consistently to all articles please, instead of enforcing it very strictly on some articles while completely ignoring others. Here are the other articles whose notability might be in doubt: UAE (emulator) Stella (emulator) Xenia (emulator) FCEUX NESticle Nestopia Snes9x ZSNES 1964 (emulator) Mupen64Plus Project64 Project Unreality UltraHLE Dolphin (emulator) Cemu VisualBoyAdvance Citra (emulator) nullDC bleem! bleemcast! Connectix Virtual Game Station ePSXe PCSX-Reloaded PCSX2 RPCS3 PPSSPP higan (emulator) Kega Fusion MAME MESS Mednafen OpenEmu RetroArch While I would prefer it if we could keep all of those articles and find it depressing whenever Wikipedia loses an article, I must say, you have really opened my eyes regarding this General Notability Guideline and the real meanings of “reliable source” and “significant coverage”, and I have now realized, probably the VAST majority of those 33 articles should be deleted for not meeting the General Notability Guideline, if we are really going to be enforcing that rule here. I just thought it would be helpful to point that out, if you really want to enforce that rule. Because it doesn’t seem like you are really enforcing it on all articles, not that it is your fault, of course not, Wikipedia has articles and it is very hard to go through all of them to find which ones lack notability, it would take almost forever to go through that many, but, I think I just gave you all some very good leads on other articles that probably lack notability, I am giving you 33 good leads. But since I don’t quite understand your standards and originally thought the sources for DeSmuME were fine, and in fact I thought they were better than the sources cited in many of those other articles, obviously I am not the right person to check this given my implicit bias as well as my lack of understanding of the relevant notability policies, and someone who actually understands notability policies much better than I do should look into it. Please get back to me on my user talk page with what you think about all this, and if I am getting anything wrong, please inform me. If nobody responds to me or looks at those articles seriously I suppose I will have to just nominate all 33 of them for deletion myself and let you sort through it then, but I really do not want to have to do that because I really do not understand the policies well enough and I might be nominating articles for deletion that actually do belong on this wiki and I would prefer an expert on these policies do it.
 * Delete per Salvidrim. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 17:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. QueerFilmNerd  talk 18:34, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete - I actually wrote the current version of the article and put in most of the sources and really didn’t want it to get deleted. I did my best to find independent, reliable sources that provided significant coverage and cite them all in the article itself. Other people have reviewed them and seem to agree that each source is either not independent, not reliable, or does not provide significant coverage. I do not understand those policies enough at this point to know exactly how “reliable” or “significant coverage” is defined since I thought it was pretty obvious that several of those sources were both of those yet here I see consensus among a bunch of people that actually, those conditions are not met. Anyway I cannot vote to keep my article knowing what I now know about the policy, since in the Talk page of the article, Woodroar and I discussed various sources and even the one source I thought would PROVE notability, Woodroar totally demolished my argument regarding that source. Anyway, go ahead and delete it, I am sorry for creating that article, I really thought I had met the notability guidelines, it seems I need to study the notability guidelines harder. Is there any recommended reading anyone can suggest to me on the precise meanings of “reliable sources” and “significant coverage”, like anything you can link me to that would describe in detail what exactly those mean, and not just brief little things that can be interpreted in multiple ways like WP:GNG? That would really help a whole lot. I really want to keep contributing to Wikipedia in the future, you see, but unless I am educated on this matter, it will be difficult for me to know what I am allowed to create articles on and what I am not. I was pretty sure that DeSmuME was a notable enough topic to merit inclusion in this online encyclopedia according to its General Notability Guideline but it seems I misinterpreted the definitions of both “reliable sources” and “significant coverage”. I am sorry about that. Thank you Woodroar for trying to educate me about this and for looking at all my sources and being the one to go through this process, and thank you Salvidrim for also taking the time to look at all the sources in detail. I actually honestly considered nominating the article for deletion myself after what Woodroar explained to me on the talk page and understood that it did not meet the notability guidelines but I figured, no, I would learn more if I waited for someone else to do it so that I could see the exact reasoning used, plus, there was also the possibility that Woodroar did not represent the consensus of people in AfD discussions, which was still an open question in my mind at that time. But now, well, clearly this article has to be deleted. It was a mistake for me to create it and I am sorry.


 * Thank you for reading my lengthy comment, I appreciate your patience very much! Yetisyny (talk) 04:20, 27 August 2018 (UTC
 * Can´t comment about the other emulators, but there are many reviews (with several pages) of UAE and MAME in published magazines - even their Amiga versions alone would have enough coverage to pass GNG. Sources in the article are too short (few small paragraphs at best) to discuss the article subject in detail. I wonder, wouldn´t be possible to have one phrase about emulator in the console article (with one of the better references) and then redirect? Pavlor (talk) 16:36, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * If there are other articles also failing to meet the criteria for inclusion, the solution is not to keep this one, but to also discuss whether the other ones require deletion. Also I decided to alter your comment and collapse a bit of its extended content -- please take absolutely zero offense, I just think its ostentatious length was literally an obstacle to the page's readability and I'm trying to be helpful to others who might want to comment here. :) Ben · Salvidrim!   &#9993;  17:48, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * No offense taken. Also that is exactly what I said, that if other articles likewise fail to meet the criteria for inclusion as DeSmuME did, the solution is to discuss whether they require deletion. Also you are right about my comment being a bit too long, I am in total agreement with you on all of those points you just made, and your edit to make this page more readable is eminently justified, I can go on for too long, it is a bad habit of mine. I am serious about other articles maybe not meeting the GNG, I even rewrote one of them myself, the Kega Fusion one. Although it seems another editor just changed that article into a redirect for failing to meet GNG, instead of going through the AfD process. I suppose I might have to fix that since the redirect goes to a page with no relevant info. UPDATE: I just did fix it, you can look at the AfD discussion for Kega Fusion here: Articles for deletion/Kega Fusion Yetisyny (talk) 14:07, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete - My analysis came to the same conclusion that Salvidrim! came to. Sergecross73   msg me  14:56, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete - I brought this up at WT:VG. Can't see it meets guidelines.  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:53, 29 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Videogameplayer99 (talk) 08:15, 31 August 2018 (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.