Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MediaWiki version history


 * 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 on the issue of "keep vs. delete" and  no consensus on the issue of merging. that can be discussed on the article's talk page. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:30, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

MediaWiki version history

 * – ( View AfD View log )

WP:NOTCHANGELOG (a Wikipedia policy) is abundantly clear that this is not what Wikipedia is for. Any notable additions should be mentioned in the main article as prose. No WP:USEFUL arguments, please. Axem Titanium (talk) 05:25, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep. WP:NOTCHANGELOG does not support deletion of this article; it states that "An article about a product should include a history of its development and major improvements; creating a list of all changes to software or hardware between each minor version violates other precepts of this policy." This article is not a changelog of each minor change in each build; it is an overview of the development history and lists the major improvements of major versions. This article is comparable to other articles such as Adobe Photoshop version history and Internet Explorer versions. The information is notable and encyclopedic; merging into the MediaWiki article would defeat the original reason this article was created in the first place, as a split from the MediaWiki article due to length. —Lowellian (reply) 06:59, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * See WP:OSE. Also, there are no secondary sources in the article suggesting that the release history itself is notable. If it got too long to be contained in the main article, then that means that it should be trimmed down. Every article needs to justify its own existence and notability. Axem Titanium (talk) 00:54, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. Does anyone have a copy of The Wikipedia Revolution? I had a good search for sources but I couldn't find anything that covered the version history post-2003. The snippets from The Wikipedia Revolution on Google Books looked promising, but I couldn't actually find anything that could prove that this aspect of MediaWiki was covered there. —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 11:04, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep Base article MediaWiki is long enough that separating out this content is useful. Many significant pieces of software have details on their history, and as Lowellian mentions, this is allowed. There is no summary this good on the product's website. --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:38, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions.  —Tom Morris (talk) 16:05, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Size is a reason for splitting, yes, but that does not mean that the daughter article is immune from our notability guidelines. WP:WHENSPLIT explicitly says that editors should consider notability when splitting. If this particular aspect of MediaWiki is notable then there is no problem, but if it isn't there are other ways to keep the length of the main article down. For example, you could convert the list into prose form and simply list the most important features that were developed - then merging back into the main MediaWiki article would not create such a size problem. —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 20:53, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * However, while the version history is probably not notable in its own right, the article is far too long to comfortably place in the MediaWiki article itself. Therefore, the article deserves to stay, as it is eventually merely a part of the MediaWiki article which has been removed from the article proper due to style reasons. Wer900 talkessay on the definition of consensus 21:27, 5 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Keep: I believe we should have a guideline for this – the topics that are split out of articles for technical reasons should not be nominated separately from their parents. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 21:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * That's not a keep reason... Axem Titanium (talk) 00:54, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment - I've just noticed that we have had this conversation before, a year and a half ago. See Articles for deletion/MediaWiki release history. —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 21:50, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
 * What? Really? This should probably be speedy merged, just like the previous AFD then! Axem Titanium (talk) 00:54, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge with MediaWiki or Delete. The test for whether a separate encyclopedia article is merited is if there is sufficient reliable secondary sources to ensure verification. As decided at the last AFD (!), we should not have a separate article about this. Either properly merge it, make it into an SVG that can be stuck into to the main article, or just let the release timeline live on MediaWiki.org where it belongs. Steven Walling &bull; talk   00:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Merge to MediaWiki. Without proof of notability, this cannot be kept as a stand-alone article. Even if the information is removed from Wikipedia, it will still be available at MediaWiki.org, as Steven Walling says, so I don't think it would be any great loss. I would also be happy with a decision to delete, but I think the judgement on how/whether to include the info should really be taken by the editors at the MediaWiki article rather than here. —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 18:46, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment. This may be a bit slow after having just cast my !vote, but I have just thought of a compromise solution which I think everyone could live with. While I was searching for sources I found a number of mentions of MediaWiki's development before version 1.0, when it was adapted from UseModWiki. I don't think many people would contest the notability of this early history, so why don't we just move this page over the redirect History of MediaWiki and expand it to include all of MediaWiki's history, rather than just post-1.0? —  Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 19:06, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Keep - While WP:NOTCHANGELOG does indeed frown upon such things in general, we Wikipedians have a duty to preserve our own history. There is a growing body of academic work on the various aspects of the sociology of Wikipedia, entire books written on the topic, etc. This is to me a clear case where we need to apply common sense and WP:IGNOREALLRULES. A merger to MediaWiki might be okay as a fallback option, but this is substantial enough in size that it should be considered an attached page to that piece rather than a standalone article per se. I have a very strong aversion to deleting this information outright, that would be a terrible outcome here. Carrite (talk) 16:20, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you aware that ALL of this info already exists at MediaWiki's wiki (WikiCeption!)? None of this info is going to be gone forever and I'm pretty sure there's an even greater aversion to giving Wikipedia preferential treatment. Axem Titanium (talk) 16:32, 11 April 2012 (UTC)
 * By WP:OR, all information on Wikipedia should exist elsewhere, since Wikipedia should contain no information that has not been previously published. That the information exists offsite is not an argument to delete. And considering that we have articles like Adobe Photoshop version history and Internet Explorer versions, in no way is this giving preferential treatment to Wikipedia. —Lowellian (reply) 19:32, 12 April 2012 (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.