Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Samizdat: And Other Issues Regarding the 'Source' of Open Source Code


 * 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. I would remind editors though to treat primary sources, such as emails, with care in articles like this. Lankiveil (speak to me) 01:46, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Samizdat: And Other Issues Regarding the &

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I can find no substantial coverage of this article (or book?) in reliable sources. The article appears to have been primarily created as an attack page, and I can't find sufficient reliable sources to meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines. Champaign Supernova (talk) 04:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)


 * There's several RSes listed right there on the page (Linux Today, LinuxInsider, NewsForge, CommsWorld AU, IT Pro UK, academic source First Monday). You're literally claiming none of these are RSes? - David Gerard (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment from creator: I wrote the original content that was moved from another article for this one. I didn't create it as an "attack page", and that comes across as a personal attack on me. Is that what you meant to do? If not, please withdraw the accusation - David Gerard (talk) 21:47, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Literature-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:15, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:15, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:15, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:16, 10 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Response: There are two inline citations in the whole article. As I brought up on the article's talk page, I'm not sure Linux Insider is a WP:RS. It looks like a niche online publication, and it's not apparently notable enough itself for a Wikipedia article. The IT Pro source doesn't mention the Samizdat article, so it's not sufficient to establish notability, and is probably WP:COATRACK to include since it doesn't specifically mention the subject of the article. There are a number of external links (I trimmed quite a few, including some that were links to emails). However, as I said in nominating this article, there aren't currently sufficient reliable sources in the article to establish notability. If you are aware of such WP:RS, please add them to the article as inline citations. The original article appeared to me to be very biased and in violation of WP:NPOV. That's why I sought to clean it up, and in so doing, I've had difficulty establishing notability, which is why I ultimately nominated this article for deletion. Sentences like "The book was greeted with almost universal derision by the technical world and was repudiated by many of its claimed sources," especially with no sourcing, are unencyclopedic and do give the impression of an attack page. I'm not saying it was your intention to create an attack page, but the original article was in violation of quite a few of Wikipedia's guidelines. Champaign Supernova (talk) 00:32, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There are three inline citations, not two. The reference to the Wall Street Journal in the section headed "Reactions to Samizdat" hasn't been formatted as a footnote, but that isn't required by our guidelines, as far as I am aware. For the avoidance of doubt, NRVE requires the existence of reliable sources, not their immediate citation, inline or otherwise. James500 (talk) 01:36, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think "(WSJ, 14 June 2004)" really counts as a reference, since it's not verifiable. The WSJ undoubtedly published many things on that day, so we'd need an article title. Champaign Supernova (talk) 02:28, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * That is total nonsense. All you have to do is search for the quote in Google, and it immediately comes up with this WSJ article (which is obviously what is being cited) and other reliable sources such as Ars Technica. And, yes, you do have to actually look for these sources yourself (WP:BEFORE). James500 (talk) 05:53, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment – For purposes of this discussion, I added a convenience link to the story, as the original is paywalled. I'll replace it with the official url later, once we confirm that the WSJ story is in fact about the report. – Margin1522 (talk) 17:55, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for finding the article. However, it doesn't mention the subject of this article, so I don't see how we can use it as a source here. The topic of this article is a book called Samizdat: And Other Issues Regarding the 'Source' of Open Source Code. The WSJ article mentions a report by the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute, but it doesn't give a title. How can we know it is referring to Samizdat? I don't see how the Samizdat book (or article/report) meets our notability guidelines. I think any reliably sourced content about it can be included in the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute's page, but why does it needs its own page? Champaign Supernova (talk) 06:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The WSJ's description of the contents of the report is far more detailed than you suggest. If the description of the contents is sufficiently detailed that it could not plausibly refer to any other report by the institute, it does not need to mention the title of the report. James500 (talk) 18:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
 * Comment. This German article from Heinz Heise discusses the topic. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 23:16, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment – I added that to the article, since there was a Citation needed tag saying that we need a secondary source saying that "samizdat" was a reference to "a form of private circulation of suppressed literature within Soviet-bloc countries". – Margin1522 (talk) 17:46, 27 December 2014 (UTC)  And I also added the slang meaning -- code and techniques passed in samizdat fashion from programmer to programmer. Now it makes sense. – Margin1522 (talk) 09:23, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Natg 19 (talk) 01:10, 16 December 2014 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica1000 00:54, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep&mdash;I followed this story as it was happening and it seemed like every Linux journalist wrote a story on it. The article needs a cleanup pass to move the external links into citations, but (in my opinion) there's no doubt as to notability here.  Lesser Cartographies (talk) 07:26, 25 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep – per this was a big story, at least among journalists interested in Linux and operating system kernels. I don't agree that emails should be excluded. An email from Dennis Ritchie may be used as a source of information about Dennis Ritchie, in an article about him (WP:SELFSOURCE). Although inline references are preferable, there is no requirement saying that they must be inline (WP:GENREF). – Margin1522 (talk) 18:23, 27 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep - the article in its current state is clearly somewhat biased, but the response to this book (with audits that demonstrated its inaccuracy) played an important role in publicising and legitimising open software from a commercial perspective. FLHerne (talk) 23:51, 29 December 2014 (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.