Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ikonboard


 * 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. Cirt (talk) 17:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Ikonboard

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Seemingly non-notable software. No coverage in reliable independent sources that I can see. Some IPs are edit warring over it, so I assume a WP:PROD would be contested. Pcap ping  20:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions.  -- Pcap  ping  20:11, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Most of this article is based on forum posts, but it does have a source that passes WP:RS, this interview on Sitepoint's web site. There are lot of google books hits, but many of those are because "ikonboard.cgi" appears in some url cited in the book. That fact and the interview suggest this software was widely used, so it may be of historical importance. This 2002 Que Publishing book explicitly says it's one of the most "famous and notable" together with WWWBoard, WebBBS, and YABB. I'm going to leave this open for now, hopefully more convincing secondary sources will be found. Pcap ping  23:33, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment: I'm a former developer of Ikonboard, later Ikonforums. It's true that this software was once widely used. Searches for Ikonboard will still generate hundreds of thousands of hits. Mostly running the popular (and more or less last) releases of Ikonboard, 3.1.2a and 3.1.3. It's now mostly just a cult hit. The original creator of Ikonboard later went on to found Invision Power Services, so the connection to a semi-notable person (the link to Matthew Mecham is still red though) does exist. Do reliable sources exist? Probably not. It's long since faded into obscurity on the web, so its unlikely new sources will come out. Whether or not this amounts to anything notable, I don't know. ^demon[omg plz] 13:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
 * (Weak) Keep: As per ^demon I'm also a former developer of Ikonboard. I think that historically Ikonboard had notability and as the book link suggests it used to be a very popular software competing with other software which is still notable. That said these days it is nowhere near as notable as it once was, in my opinion ownership battles and mis-management affected development and lost many of its users.  The article has some independent interviews to provide third-party sourcing, unfortunately some third-party sites such as swarf.net have ceased operating.  The web archive is the only reliable method of recording official announcements as ownership of the ikonboard.com domain appears to have been lost.  I doubt it will be possible to provide any reliable third-party sourcing of any future development.  I would suggest the article remains semi-protected though it would appear much of the IP based editing/vandalism has been done by the current developer WP:COI (based on User_talk:68.213.153.149). Brollachan (talk) 09:19, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep but should be refactored to focus on the software, not on the people behind it. Take out the "it is believed" cruft; let people make their own decisions from facts that can be cited. GreenReaper (talk) 15:32, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's old, and not really used any more, but it definitely held a place of great relevance in the forum software community once upon a time.  It was the only free bulletin board that offered a robust feature set comparable to that of paid solutions at the time.  205.215.210.10 (talk) 17:45, 3 February 2010 (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.