Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/RFO Basic


 * 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. SarahStierch (talk) 22:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

RFO Basic

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No indication of notability. Sources are either not independent or do not mention RFO basic. noq (talk) 07:04, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Delete: Concur with noq. Cited sources are all either primary or do not mention RFO Basic! at all. Searching on Google, GNews, Gscholar does not turn up anything better for sources at a glance. Seems to be a hobby project for Android which does not seem to meet WP:NSOFT or even WP:GNG for now -- although it seems to have gathered a little following, so maybe it will turn out to be a case of WP:TOOSOON. Either way, does not seem like a keeper right now. -- BenTels (talk) 12:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions.  • Gene93k (talk) 00:34, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

I feel the use of the phrase 'seems to be a hobby project for Android...' is used in a dismissive sense - as if to imply that hobby projects are all unworthy of articles in Wikipedia. First, I disagree with the implication; I feel that even hobby projects, from quiltmaking to beekeeping, are worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia if they meet Wikipedia criteria. But more importantly, it is an incorrect conclusion; RFO BASIC is not a hobby project. All programming languages are used for both personal and professional use, and RFO BASIC is no exception. Speaking as a professional programmer, I am satisfied that RFO BASIC has everything it takes to write extensive, industrial strength programs. The speed, stability, and flexibility are all present. It's a fast, tough, solid and flexible language. In terms of market penetration, Amazon.com marketplace has 'sold' (at no charge) 1,000 copies of RFO BASIC. Appslib.com has distributed more than 10,000 copies; and Google play store, the primary distributor, has distributed 30,000 copies. That totals 41,000 people (to date; the numbers go up every day) who were motivated enough by the promise of a free and useful programming language to actually download and install the software on their Android capable device. These are very high numbers; other programming languages available for Android struggle to reach 10% of these numbers. But even more importantly, the demand is trending upward; more copies were distributed in the second quarter of this year than in the first. As word spreads, more and more people are turning to RFO BASIC as their programming language of choice. Readers reviews on Google Play Store show 439 reviewers granting a rating of 4.7 out of 5. This is a higher rating than any other product I have checked, and is a reflection of how satisfied people are with the product. The comment "Just another Basic dialect" - again, this comment seems to suggest that there are many Basic dialects (correct) available for Android (incorrect). In fact, there is one other dialect of BASIC available for the Android operating system - Mintoris Basic, which is a commercial, for profit product. According to Google, it has sold between 1,000 and 5,000 copies. One of the things that makes RFO BASIC so notable and important is that, in the world of Android operated phones and tablets, RFO BASIC is the only BASIC programming language available for free. This has tremendous importance in the third world (where cellphones are commonly used instead of land lines, due to lack of land line infrastructure); in many areas of the third world, people live on less than $2 US dollars a month. To purchase a commercial language requires an expenditure of several months earnings. But that isn't true of RFO BASIC; it's free. It's also powerful, solid, fast and flexible. This is the kind of power that changes lives, and ultimately countries. For a gifted programmer to make this kind of power available at no cost to impoverished people around the globe is more than noble; it's notable. And we should take note. "It would have to be something pretty stellar to make BASIC notable and this isn't it." This comment seems to suggest that BASIC (the entire language, not just RFO BASIC) is unimportant. Clearly this does not represent the consensus of Wikipedians, for there is a Wikipedia article on Basic. Basic, as a language, is notable. That's why the Wikipedia page exists. I feel the comment also reflects a bias against the BASIC language in general. While different people have different preferences in programming languages, I have noted a common (and unfortunate) tendency among some individuals to denigrate particular languages; and BASIC is frequently a target. Because BASIC was designed as a teaching language, it is frequently the first language taught in introductory programming courses. This often inspires the belief that it is in some way a 'junior' or 'incomplete' or 'limited' or 'deficient' language. That is both unfortunate, and untrue. Personally, over 30 years I have programmed in IBM 360 Assembler, 6502 Assembler, CDC Basic, COBOL, FORTRAN, various iterations of Visual Basic, Borland C++, Visual C++, and probably several others that escape my recollection at the moment. This breadth of experience has provided me with the opportunity to recognize useful programming tools. The cost, speed, solidity, flexibility, and ease of use makes RFO BASIC such a tool. It should not be denigrated. To continue to address the comment: "...and this isn't it." Really? Why? To the best of my knowledge, RFO BASIC provides support for every single function and feature that exists on any Android powered cellphone or tablet, anywhere in the world. There is support for gravity sensors, proximity sensors, GPS receivers... the list is extensive. Supporting all these hardware capabilities in a software product is an extremely difficult feat; I would be surprised to discover many other languages that offer the extensive peripheral hardware support that RFO BASIC offers. I don't really know how one could make that achievement more stellar. "Serious lack of independent sourcing". Possibly; as a new wikipedian, I'm unsure as to the meaning of the comment. If you mean that there is a lack of complete footnoting or attributable sourcing for every statement, I will agree. This is my first Wikipedia article, and I am sure that it could be improved in many ways. But it should be improved, not deleted. We should not throw the baby out with the bathwater... or allow my inexperience in writing wiki-style articles to delete an entire topic for everyone. We should do better, not destroy. Here are the Wikipedia 'in a nutshell' guidelines for software articles: "Software articles should avoid promotional wording and establish significance. Consider the circumstances surrounding an article in relation to the type of sources used. Before nominating an unsourced article for deletion, make sure to verify that it is non-notable, not just missing citations." "avoid promotional wording"... think I did that. "establish significance"... by discussing the notability (importance) of RFO BASIC (to both the Android platform and the world at large) in the first several lines of the first paragraph, I think I did that. "Consider the circumstances surrounding an article in relation to the type of sources used." Sorry, but I haven't a clue in the Universe as to what that sentence means. Perhaps I'm just exceptionally stupid. "make sure to verify that it is non-notable, not just missing citations." Whether the article is Notable or not is a subjective assessment that is arrived at by each reader. For example, an article on a 15 year old starting up a rock band in his basement is probably not notable; but an article on a major political figure probably is. However, there's a broad and fuzzy spectrum in between, and this is where most articles - including RFO BASIC - probably lay. I feel that because a) this language is a traditional dialect of BASIC, which is very easy for new and non-programmers to learn; and b) the language runs on the Android operating system, which is the most prevalent operating system in the cell phone and tablet arenas today; and c) the language is very fast (programs run quickly); and d) stable (programs don't crash); and e) the language is flexible (there is support for every hardware function found on any phone or tablet in the world, so anything you want to do, you can do); and f) the language is currently used by 41,000 people around the world with more joining every day, and the demand is trending up; and g) it is available for free, which has tremendous sociological implications in the third world, and tremendous benefit to impoverished people everywhere; and so, for all of these reasons... I feel RFO BASIC is a notable product, and worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Let me close by saying that in attempting to address the objections of various Wikipedians to this article, I may have inadvertently hurt some feelings. If so, I sincerely apologize. You should all know that I greatly appreciate the time and effort required to make every submission; and that I feel your efforts will help me write better articles in the future. I appreciate it, and I thank you. Sincerely, Charles Worton — Preceding unsigned comment added by Charlieworton (talk • contribs) 03:44, 29 August 2012 (UTC)  — Charlieworton (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * delete Just another BASIC dialect. It would have to be something pretty stellar to make BASIC notable and this isn't it. Serious lack of independent sourcing too.Andy Dingley (talk) 16:07, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
 * retain Please let me start by stating that I am the author of the article in question; I do not wish to mislead anyone. Here is my position: RFO BASIC is a software product.  Due to the rapid development environment of all software, notable and important software frequently does not have extensive mention on the internet.  This, in and of itself, should not be considered a measure of notability; and hence, lack of extensive mention on the internet should not be used as a criteria for article deletion.  However, it should be noted that a search for 'RFO Basic' on Google returned approximately 1,750,000 hits.  Clearly it is not an invisible product.
 * Holy WP:TLDR, Batman. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:09, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Comment I am afraid you have not established WP:notability in the sense that Wikpedia uses the term. That requires significant coverage in independent WP:reliable sources - which you said at the beginning is difficult to do. To address your points above,


 * a) not relevant to notability or specific to this version of Basic,
 * b) not relevant to notability, many thousands of Android apps exist - that does not make them notable,
 * c) most definitely not relevant to notability and quite subjective, useful when marketing it but nothing to do with notability.
 * d) again, does not make it notable, stability is not one of the notability criteria
 * e) still nothing to see here notability wise, it runs on Android and can do things Android lets it do.
 * f) not proven and not really relevant - even if 41,000 unique people downloaded it it does not mean they use it,
 * g) free or paid for makes no difference to notability. None of these arguments show it as being notable. noq (talk) 14:02, 29 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Commnet I am afraid you don't get the point. He has established WP:notability because the topic may have an article. In fact: many people work on it and contribute to it to date. Its forum has over 400 members, and it implements most of the solutions a programmer may need to create an application.

Point: YOU ARE WRONG. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.61.35.207 (talk) 14:56, 29 August 2012 (UTC) — 109.61.35.207 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
 * a) name an application that had no changes made to it whatsoever
 * b) relevant to notability, if a number of other apps get wikipedia erticles, BASIC! deserver one too
 * c) most definitely relevant to notability and quite objective in the sense that it contains no information that may change by one's perspective.
 * d) "again, does not make it notable, stability is not one of the notability criteria" <- this comment is not notable, as it does not serve any purpose other than making the list longer to create an impression of you making more good points.
 * e) while you are true, doing things on android that the [ADK] lets you with compiling an application on a PC is the whole point of BASIC! (and you also don't need a period at the end of that line)
 * f) It is quite obvious that people use it by the 101 topics posted in the forum thread "Shared BASIC! programs", and the many applications distributed standalone on the android market.
 * g) free or paid makes a difference. (Would you download a 2x2 white picture for 1$?) These "arguments" make it look like it is notable. Pluto isn't notable because there are millions of known planets and it isn't a planet.
 * I'm afraid you have no idea how notability works. WP:ITEXISTS is not enough, and the existiance or not of WP:OTHERSTUFF has no bearing. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:09, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment The above entry appears to be in response to a forum post calling for people to help keep the article (I cannot post a link as it triggers a spam protection filter, you can google for rfo freeforums to find it). If you came here because of that forum post, please read this first
 * noq (talk) 17:42, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Comment Gentlemen (and ladies): please allow me to introduce a note of perspective. The typical cost for a 3 terabyte hard drive (3,000,000,000,000 bytes of information) is $150.00 USD as of August 2012. That works out to a cost of 0.000000005 cents per byte. The article in question consumes a space of 8,192 bytes. This means that at current hard drive storage prices it will cost 0.00004096 cents to store this article. That is approximately one twentyfive thousandth of one cent. If no one reads the article, then it will consume no resources beyond its original storage cost. If it is widely read, then it was probably worth retaining. I have heard of much ado about nothing; but this discussion is not that. This discussion is about saving Wikipedia one twentyfive thousandth of one cent. But if you will now excuse me, I must go; I've been asked to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. Compared to this, that is a very important job.
 * Delete - Zero evidence of notability. - The Bushranger One ping only 00:09, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment: It has nothing to do with cost. And number of readers is not relevant. -- BenTels (talk) 22:11, 30 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Comment: I strongly move to retain this informative article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.103.208.226 (talk) 02:06, 2 September 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.