Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Impromptu (programming environment)


 * 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The result was   keep or "nomination withdrawn", take your pick. Ron Ritzman (talk) 23:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

Impromptu (programming environment)

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Software article sourced to primary sources, which are academic papers by its author in this case. I'm somewhat familiar with the area, and I say confidently it has less independent coverage than ChucK. The inclusion of that article in Wikipedia was controversial, so this one should be discussed as well. FuFoFuEd (talk) 14:09, 1 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Speedy keep A Google Scholar search reveals several third party souces: papers published in peer reviewed journals or presented at CS conferences, and a book chapter (not self-published). The article needs to be better sourced though. I'll update it soon. Edit4: Sources added: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Impromptu_%28programming_environment%29&diff=432019093&oldid=432002882 Disclaimer: I'm the creator of this article. Pygy (talk) 15:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Nobody is doubting that Impromptu is getting some academic citations. It just gets less than ChucK. Google Scholar gives 80 citations for ChucK's first paper and 27 for Impromptu. Most of these do not satisfy the WP:GNG standard. I picked at random one of the papers you have added . The coverage of Impromptu there is in one sentence, which says: "In order to bring together these diverging issues, the SuperCollider application (SC) has been chosen among other possible candidates (e.g. Chuck[3], Impromptu [9]), as it features a high-level, object-oriented, interactive language together with a real-time, effcient audio server." Not very compelling coverage. FuFoFuEd (talk) 16:53, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Actually a lot of the scholar hits are secondary, A Brown referencing Sorensen, but some are good as also a couple from the article. There also these two  - frankie (talk) 00:18, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The coverage of Impromptu in those two books is one sentence or one line in a table. ChucK had more in-depth independent coverage, but many Wikipedia editors still found unconvincing. My essay arguing that a source like Nick Collins' table putting ChucK (or Impromptu) alongside other similar languages is proof of notability was deleted by other Wikipedians as an invalid argument in Wikipedia. FuFoFuEd (talk) 04:26, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Including those two discrete references to the subject by an specialized publication, my general assessment is that the subject does meet notability. The paper by Collins is behind a paywall and I haven't been able to get a snippet from Google, so I cannot comment on it - frankie (talk) 17:33, 2 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep. This is a well developed language, with active user base, many novel features, and many references in the literature. Slapping an immediate deletion notice on the article rather than a request for improved references seems like rude trolling to me. Yaxu (talk) 09:08, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * "An editor who believes a page obviously and uncontroversially doesn't belong in an encyclopedia can propose its deletion." That does not cover a user deciding that notability of an article is controversial, and wanting to start a discussion about it. That's what the talk page is for, surely? Please be more considerate of others' blood pressure levels in future.  Yaxu (talk) 09:15, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * My nomination and comments seem to be about par for Wikipedia. FuFoFuEd (talk) 09:29, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I was getting mixed up between proposed deletion and a deletion discussion, but still I see no reason why you couldn't have just put a request for references on the article. Yaxu (talk) 09:41, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Because I'm fairly sure there aren't any satisfying WP:GNG. One sentence mentions/references do not seem to count here for notability purposes. FuFoFuEd (talk) 09:45, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * A huge raft of mentions across the computer music literature surely does count as notability. Furthermore the paper I just added from the forthcoming ICMC deals with impromptu in depth. In any case I'm very surprised that someone clearly so involved with computer music languages would see impromptu as anything other than notable; it clearly is, no matter how tedious proving it turns out to be. Yaxu (talk) 16:32, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * So, how do you know the contents of a paper that hasn't been published yet and of which no preprint seems to be available? I assume you refer to Thor Magnusson, "Confessions of a Live Coder", Proceedings of International Computer Music Conference, 2011. Are you the author of that yet to be published paper, or a reviewer of it? I did a google search for that, and all I found was this Wikipedia article mentioning it. FuFoFuEd (talk) 18:11, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry to send you on a wild goose chase, yes that's the paper, it's not available online yet but passed double blind peer review, and I read a preprint. As I remember it is in part about his experience learning impromptu. Yaxu (talk) 19:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks. That seemed fairly plausible given his blog. FuFoFuEd (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I've checked and the copy I have is largely around learning impromptu, although wasn't the final draft. I've asked him to make a pre-print public. Yaxu (talk) 21:54, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * His publication list does not show it either, while it does list some forthcoming publications, http://www.ixi-audio.net/thor/, so something is wrong here. Maybe the paper got rejected? FuFoFuEd (talk) 18:40, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * However, I see that Magnusson has an extensive blog dedicated to impromptu http://improgramming.wordpress.com/, and to some extensions he wrote. I think that qualifies under the WP:SPS expert exception, just like the stuff Smith self-published about FAUST qualified. So, I vote to:
 * Keep this article. Sufficient independent coverage exists, even if the more convincing one GNG-wise will only appear in print this summer. FuFoFuEd (talk) 20:59, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. I think it's helpful to keep a broad view of WP:GNG, in the spirit it was intended, and then figure out what references will satisfy it. They may not be scholarly papers. WP:GNG appears to me to be designed to keep out pages on hobbyists whose work is only known among their circle of friends. Impromptu isn't that. It seems to have an active international user base, and lots of people know about it. How did they all find out about it?  It seems the thing to do would be to find the appropriate references that document that, rather than focusing too much on the specifics of scholarly papers. Mediamation (talk) 21:33, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Getting tired of the gratuitous deletion votes on specialist software packages. The question that should be asked: do these types of articles serve a useful purpose to a user community. In this case, clearly yes. There is a vibrant community, academic and non-academic, around these types of software packages. And wiki catalogs (in particular), and articles like this one provide an important index into both distributions and primary source material for these languages. Edrowland (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:21, 3 June 2011 (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.