Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Midgard (software)


 * 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. There is sufficient consensus for a closure. JForget 00:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Midgard (software)

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Unable to find a single non-trivial reliable secondary source covering the subject on Google, gScholar, gNews, or gBooks and thus does not satisfy notability guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia. The sources on the page are self-published and copied press releases. Odie5533 (talk) 19:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Completely opposed to mindless deletionism and tossing away of the substantial contributions of many in what's a fairly comprehensive article. Greenman (talk) 21:16, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:EFFORT --Odie5533 (talk) 22:27, 25 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete: I can't find significant coverage for this software. Joe Chill (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * See the discussion below, the article has now been updated with a significant number of sources including market analyst reports and stories on mainstream web services like IBM DeveloperWorks, ZDnet and DevShed Bergie (talk) 18:54, 26 October 2009 (EET)


 * Keep: I am mindbogged about this discussion. Google gives good information on the subject and what's wrong with for example: http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/on_vikings_and_free_software/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.152.74.183 (talk) 09:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:RS – it's a self-published blog, only useful for citing the opinion of the blogger and only then if the blogger is notable himself. --Odie5533 (talk) 10:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep: We're talking about a significant free software project. Sources in the Wikipedia article may be improved by using external organizations like CMS Watch (market analyst organization relevant to this field), but the info itself is correct already now. Bergie (talk) 12:06, 26 October 2009 (EET)
 * Per my nomination, the problem with the article is that it has not received significant coverage in secondary reliable sources. If you could please address this issue, perhaps by providing reliable sources, it would be most helpful in determining that the information in the article is correct, per WP:V. --Odie5533 (talk) 10:19, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * This is a project by the Open Source community where what you consider secondary might be independent contributors which in turn you wouldn't consider secondary because of contributing. Also, the information is correct and has been verified by members of the community. Discussing completely removing this article on the basis of not considering the information valid just because of missing coverage outside of the community. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.152.74.183 (talk) 11:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I've added more references to third parties, including CMS Watch and articles from "competing" open source projects like Plone. Will that satisfy the requirement? Obviously digging up references from the ten years of history of the project is cumbersome but more can be done if required. Old paper publications are a bit hard to find, though. Bergie (talk) 13:09, 26 October 2009 (EET)


 * You appear to have made it worse. Please read the entire guideline at WP:RS. Self-published blogs are not reliable sources and should not appear at all on encyclopedic articles. The exception to this is for quoting direct opinions of notable people. --Odie5533 (talk) 16:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * You seem to look very narrow-mindedly at the term of blog. More than half of those references are established online publications run by media companies or market analysts. From my point-of-view that should be as good (or better, as we're talking about page about software related to the web) as a print publication Bergie (talk) 18:44, 26 October 2009 (EET)
 * I don't mean to include all the new sources as blatantly unreliable, just most of them (blatantly). But you seem to have interspersed a great deal of blog posts without actual quotes or summaries of opinion. As per WP:RS, blogs are next to useless for encyclopedic articles. As I am expecting the article will be deleted, I won't bother, but technically all those blog refs should just be removed per WP:RS. Also, the ones which could possibly be included, e.g. ZDNet, DevShed, CMSWatch, etc, need to be shown to be reliable. I have not seen such an attempt made. If you would like to make it easy on us (though not required), please add the most representative sources here. Others I fear someone will need to go through each trivial source to determine the reliability of the source and extent of coverage. --Odie5533 (talk) 18:05, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Of course the blog links can be removed if that is the source of your ire. However, that is only 12 out of 43 references used. Reliability of the other sources should be quite obvious. CMS Watch is the leading market analyst of the area, ZDnet is a major news outlet, etc. So, again, I doubt that the article will be deleted when the facts are considered. But as said, I felt the blog entries added valuable context to the points of the article where they were used, which was the reason I included them. Bergie (talk) 20:33, 26 October 2009 (EET)
 * To continue on this theme, the notability criteria for software says: published works in all forms, such as newspaper articles, books, user guides, television documentaries, and full-length magazine reviews. I'd count sources like DevShed, ZDnet articles, CMS Watch analysis and IBM DeveloperWorks to be strongly in this category. The personal blog references there are also useful for understanding the context of some information in the page, even though they're not relevant to the question of notability. Bergie (talk) 18:48, 26 October 2009 (EET)
 * Update: the references section should look better now. Bergie (talk) 15:23, 26 October 2009 (EET)

Going through the sources: --Odie5533 (talk) 18:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC) More sources: I have left cmswatch.com for last because I was unable to assess its reliability. But by leaving it for last, I can say that even if it is reliable it still does not constitute significant coverage. --Odie5533 (talk) 18:58, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
 * midgard-project.org – primary source does not establish notability
 * wikimatrix.org – not reliable as it appears to be user-contributed, does not establish notability
 * ranchero.com – Brent Simmons’s linkblog is not a reliable source for an encyclopedic information (used to verify the existence of blog plugins), nor does it establish notability
 * bergie.iki.fi – Henri Bergius's blog is not a reliable source for encyclopedic information (used to verify language bindings), nor does it establish notability.
 * mdk.org.pl – Michael Kostrzewa's personal self-published programming blog where he announces the release of some ObjectiveC bindings he wrote. Does not establish notability and is unreliable.
 * thecoccinella.org – sander's self-published blog post refuting an interview. Does not establish notability, and is unreliable.
 * jonontech.com – Jon Marks's personal self-published blog used to advertise a high score he gave Midgard on his personal blog. Unreliable and doesn't support notability.
 * jukkaz.wordpress.com – Jukka Zitting's personal self-published Wordpress blog where he discusses the history of how Midgard started. Reliable for the history section, but does not support notability.
 * nettiapina.fi – Heikki Hyppänen's personal self-published blog used to discuss the history. A quote from an author appears on the blog, but I don't know the quote is real. Does not support notability and possibly unreliable.
 * linuxtoday.com – it's a press release, unreliable since it's a primary source, does not support notability. See WP:RS
 * zdnet.com – Reliable, but trivial coverage.
 * 3rd-evolution.de – non-english source, does not appear reliable.
 * lwn.net – press release type email, does not support notability and is a primary source.
 * zope-europe.org – trivial mentioning, it doesn't even talk about Midgard just mentions it in a list. Does not support notability.
 * coss.fi – trivial mentioning that Qaiku (??) uses Midgard. Does not support notability.
 * tkk.fi – trivial mentioning that their web sites use Midgard. Does not support notability and all these websites using Midgard turns into WP:SYNTH.
 * tigert.com – Kuosmanen, Tuomas self-pub blog. Not reliable and doesn't support notability.
 * arstechnica.com – Reliable, but VERY trivial mention of Midgard.
 * twingle.mozdev.org – Primary source does not establish notability. Also likely self-pub, and unreliable.
 * radio.weblogs.com – David Fletcher's personal self-pub blog. Does not support notability.
 * plone.org – Trivial mentioning does not support notability.

On the question of notability:
 * CMS Watch is the main market analyst of the area of content management. They have covered Midgard extensively and consistently over the last ten-or-so years
 * IBM DeveloperWorks is a well-established source of tutorials and articles concerning various software development topics
 * OSCOM was the central collaborative organization for open source content management systems between 2002-2009. Midgard has been featured extensively in their events (and materials like two documentary films)
 * Web Techniques and DevShed have both been well-known sources related to web development techniques in their time
 * Midgard is reviewed in Seth Gottlieb's Open Source and Content Management report which is used as a major source in the articles about Content Management on Wikipedia
 * Midgard has been shipped in both Debian and SuSE distributions, though is not at the moment due to various compatibility issues a couple years back
 * Since 2000 Midgard has been presented in dozens of conference presentations in events related to open source and content management. Some of these have been academic in nature, and some more development-oriented
 * ...and finally, Midgard is a free software project running in thousands of organizations and used by tens of thousands of users in places like Lufthansa, Nokia and HP. Exact numbers are hard to produce publicly because of the open source nature of the project (no centralized control of licensees) and various NDAs Midgard consultancies have with their customers. But this is anyway a fact

If these do not make the case for retaining the page in Wikipedia, then I wonder what can.

The other sources are not relevant to the question of notability, but are useful references to the actual contents of the article. In other words, they make it easier to delve deeper into the subject matter. Bergie (talk) 21:16, 26 October 2009 (EET)
 * At most you have presented 4 different sources to support notability. Similar frameworks generally have dozens of reliable sources covering them (or more). I don't believe this article meets the WP:N guidelines. --Odie5533 (talk) 00:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that all of the sources that were posted are trivial or unreliable. An article doesn't need dozens of reliable sources with significant coverage. Joe Chill (talk) 00:16, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd like to note that CMS Watch is built on Midgard (see the About page on their site). I don't think this affects the reliability of the source. But it is worth mentioning since the framework is obscure, and a site that uses the framework writes about the framework way more than anyone else. --Odie5533 (talk) 04:10, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd call that a plus point for keeping the article, not a negative Bergie (talk) 12:11, 31 October 2009 (EET)
 * I don't really have an opinion on it, just pointing it out. --Odie5533 (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Continuing on notability, here are listed some conferences in the field of publishing and software that have accepted papers and talks about Midgard:


 * Global Linux 2000, Seoul Korea had a talk about Midgard and the business models around it
 * OSDEM 2001 had some Midgard workshops by Ami Ganguli and Alexander Bokovoy
 * Linux Expo Madrid 2001 had a talk introducing Midgard consulting models
 * LinuxTag 2001 had a Midgard talk
 * International PHP Conference 2001 had a Midgard workshop by Philipp Rotmann and Torben Nehmer
 * Wizards of OS 2001 had a Midgard presentation by Ami Ganguli
 * Open Source Content Management Conference in 2002 in Zurich, Switzerland had a Midgard presentation
 * OSCOM 2 in 2002 in Berkeley, CA had a Midgard presentation by Henri Bergius
 * OSCOM 3 in 2003 in Cambridge, MA had a Midgard workshop
 * Seybold-Gilbane Content Management Intensive 2003 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands had a Midgard presentation
 * GUADEC 2003 in Dublin, Ireland had a Midgard presentation
 * SambaXP 2003 had a presentation about using Midgard and Samba together in intranets
 * Summer Source 2003 in Vis, Croatia had Midgard tutorials to NGO workers from around Eurasia
 * Finnish foreign ministry sponsored a week-long course on Midgard to NGOs in South Africa in 2004
 * OSCOM 4 in 2004 in Zurich, Switzerland had a Midgard and MidCOM presentations (the F.U.D documentary film was shot in this conference and same year's ApacheCon, with Midgard featured in it)
 * Russian Open Source Forum 2005 in Moscow had a presentation about providing municipality portals with Midgard
 * Forum GNOME 2005 in Curitiba, Brazil had a Midgard tutorial
 * SOLISC 2005 in Florianopolis, Brazil had a Midgard tutorial
 * ServOSS seminar 2007 in Helsinki, Finland had a Midgard presentation
 * FrOSCon 2007 in Sankt Augustin, Germany had a Midgard presentation
 * Russian Free Software Seminar 2007 in Protva had a talk about Midgard's community roots by Alexander Bokovoy
 * FSCONS 2008 in Gothenburg, Sweden had a Midgard presentation and a Midgard workshop
 * FrOSCon 2009 in Sankt Augustin, Germany had a Midgard presentation
 * Gran Canaria Desktop Summit 2009 in Las Palmas had a Midgard presentation
 * OpenMind 2009, the Finnish open source conference
 * NLUUG's The Open Web 2009 had a Midgard presentation

If Midgard is notable enough to be a desirable subject for such conferences, it ought to be for Wikipedia as well. The arrangers after all are experts in selecting relevant content for their events from this particular field. Bergie (talk) 11:28, 27 October 2009 (EET)


 * Keep: Ten years age and running important corporate sites like maemo.org shows that it is well established CMS software. It is also one of the "first wave" open source CMS solutions and was generally mentioned as one of the primary open source CMS alternatives (refs:, , , , ) around the millennium so article should be saved for the history reason too.    --Zache (talk) 07:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep: As a long time member of the Maemo Community I strongly support Midgard and stand behind its relevance in today's open source software world. Several articles from reliable sources have covered the system in its 10 years history. Please keep the wikipedia page and respect the work of those who have created this software for all of us. FerencSzekely (talk) 09:39, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep: I argue that at least the CMS Watch and IBM DeveloperWorks coverage is non-trivial. Also, CMS Watch is probably the one of the only reliable sources concentrated in this specific area of software. The 10+ years of Midgard history seems to be well reflected in various references, and make it interesting in the history of open CMS:s. At least Brent Simmons and Seth Gottlieb look like well known professionals / conference speakers in their field, so I would raise them above ordinary self-published sources. The maemo connection is also interesting though only a few publications are available so far. But as an enabler of the maemo community, with the importance of maemo hugely increasing at the moment, I think Midgard does get a few extra notability points indeed as well. --TJ (talk) 12:16, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep: per above - Ret.Prof (talk) 22:30, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:PERNOM – !voting doesn't really help the discussion. --Odie5533 (talk) 04:11, 30 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Comment This article has been inappropriately canvassed off-wiki. See .  Them  From  Space  23:14, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for letting us know Themfromspace. --Odie5533 (talk) 03:41, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't find discussing Wikipedia's deletionist policies outside of Wikipedia in any way inappropriate. Many Wikipedia contributors do not constantly follow what is happening to pages they read or have contributed about. Bergie (talk) 12:09, 31 October 2009 (EET)
 * Please see the WP:CANVASS guideline for when notifying "contributors that do not constantly follow what is happening to pages they read or have contributed about" is appropriate: "Campaigning is an attempt to sway the person reading the message, conveyed through the use of tone, wording, or intent. While this may be appropriate as part of a specific individual discussion, it is inappropriate to canvass with such messages." and "Votestacking is an attempt to sway consensus by selectively notifying editors who have or are thought to have a predetermined point of view or opinion (which may be determined, among other ways, from a userpage notice, such as a userbox, or from user categorization), and thus encouraging them to participate in the discussion." --Odie5533 (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep: If being included in Debian repositories makes software noteworthy, then software that has been the subject of numerous conference presentations should definitely be noteworthy. Also CMS Watch is definitely a reliable resource when it comes to this field of software. --Eero af Heurlin 17:03, 31 October 2009 (EET) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.20.143.193 (talk)
 * Please review Wikipedia's policy on what WP:NOTABILITY. Inclusion in the Debian repositories generally does not determine notability for software on Wikipedia. --Odie5533 (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Link does not inform on policies or refer to software notability, with Google found an old article Notability_(software) (which states that inclusion in major distribution is considered notability, OTOH it does note that Debian has plenty of packages) and IMO very good RFC Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Notability_of_free_open_source_software. While on the subject of Debian I'd like to point out that Midgard was included in Debian repos but due to version issues was removed, however notability is not temporary and thus having been once included in Debian should count as notability (how much is a different discussion, Debian has tons of packages). AFAIReall midgard was included in SUSE as well even before it started using OBS to build packages, but I can't find a reference right now. Anyways my point was that since being included in major distribution is considered to be at least some level of notability and to me being presented in a conference is much more notable than being one of the thousands of packages in a distro it should follow that the conference coverage makes Midgard notable. --Eero af Heurlin 18:20, 31 October 2009 (EET) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.20.143.193 (talk)
 * The general notability guidelines apply to all articles, including software, so anything you read on WP:N directly applies to this framework. I don't think inclusion in Debian repos has any bearing whatsoever on the notability of the framework for inclusion in Wikipedia. Also, the conferences listed are not cited so we have no way of knowing what went on at each one. And even if there were citations for them, I do not believe conferences are generally reliable secondary sources, as the information presented at the conference would need to be both recorded somehow and either peer reviewed or at least looked at by an editorial staff to determine the factual accuracy of the information being presented. This is all rather academic as the material at the conferences isn't being presented here for inclusion in the article, nor has it been included in the article. --Odie5533 (talk) 16:37, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I had (correct but outdated) recollection that being included in major distro would could as notability for software and did not check current guidelines (my mistake). Anyways as Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:Notability_of_free_open_source_software states the current guidelines have a bias against FOSS. --84.20.143.193 (talk) 18:37, 31 October 2009 (UTC) (Eero af Heurlin)


 * Comment It is downplayed in the article at the moment (to avoid sounding like an advertisement, I would think) but just a note to those unfamiliar with the field: The way Midgard uses a C library for ORM/Database abstraction and PHP extension to access that library is rather unique for CMS software (in fact I don't know of any else), and I'm fairly sure Midgard was the first CMS to take this approach. Also the way the templating engine is in an apache module (as opposed to pure PHP/Python/whatever CMS') is unique. Ditto for the DBUS signalling. --Eero af Heurlin 20:25, 31 October 2009 (EET) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.20.143.193 (talk)
 * 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.