Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Semantic reasoner


 * 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, and kudos for improvements. Mojo Hand (talk) 22:13, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Semantic reasoner

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This article is basically a link farm, with a short unsourced description at the top and an unsourced comparison table which may be original research. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 15:04, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep "Not notable because there are too many published articles about it" isn't a convincing rationale.
 * This is indeed a crap article that fails to explain the significance of the topic. Probably as a direct result of Wikipedia's dislike of SemWeb topics and regular deletion of them. It doesn't matter to SemWeb people that this is a crap article, because they already know what reasoners are and they no longer give a damn about WP's foibles. However it's a failing of WP, and WP is failing its readership, to refuse to cover this topic. Perhaps WP would do rather better if it stopped trying to delete articles on quality grounds and instead made some effort to either fix them, or at least to stop alienating the people who could do so. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:34, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that you are misinterpreting my reason for suggesting deletion. A list of software and external links to its developers, forums, company websites, etc., is not the same as "published articles" about the topic.  For the record, I nominated the page because if the unsourced information  and all of the external links in the body of the article were removed, there would only be an almost empty page left.  I don't know anything about any dislike of this topic; it sounds interesting to me.  If you are familiar with semantic reasoners and know of published sources (not blogs, forms and other user contributed or developer websites) which explain it, why not add them? Maybe textbooks, computer magazines, professional journals?  The external links would still have to be deleted, but some of the software items appear to have Wikipedia articles and could be moved to a "See also" section if there was an article to go with it.  You are right, of course, that experts in the field do not need this article.  It's readers like me who have a general interest in software and programming who would enjoy reading a properly written and sourced article. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 17:17, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what your reason was. All I know is both WP policy, and the effects of your nomination. You ask SemWeb-knowledgeable people to contribute, but if articles don't then meet your invented standard (which isn't even WP:policy), throw them away. If you're not getting enough contribution, throw away even more of it. How could the result be anything else? Andy Dingley (talk) 19:00, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * And now, remove the one useful part of the article so that even people who understand it lose any useful value. Way to go! Andy Dingley (talk) 19:10, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:47, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:47, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:47, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep It seems easy to find good sources on the topic which approach it in a similar way, discussing various specific tools which exist for the purpose — see Advanced Techniques in Web Intelligence, for example. The rest is then a matter of ordinary editing, not deletion, per our editing policy.  AFD is not cleanup. Andrew (talk) 18:35, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep I've culled all the non-notable entries (superficially, I didn't search for RS for the redlinks) in the lists in the article and transferred the possibly OR comparison table to the talk page for future work, and removed what looked like a couple of promotional bits. The lead needs to be rewritten according to reliable sources. But a GScholar search shows 524 hits for "semantic reasoner" and 4,590 hits for "semantic reasoning"; this seems like a highly notable concept. A notable topic and article problems that are surmountable, per WP:SURMOUNTABLE. suggest keeping the article. --Mark viking (talk) 19:12, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Because it's now policy that list entries have to meet WP:Notable? Andy Dingley (talk) 19:14, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * For the purposes of cleanup of the link spam, I treated this as a list-based article, and per MOS:LIST and WP:CLN, these lists have entries that are supposed to be notable--either they link to a WP article (with the presumption of notability implied by the article) or they are sourced to independent reliable sources. There are other ways such lists can be justified as notable; for instance WP:LISTN suggests that if a list as a group is considered notable, that could be used too. It may be that there are RS out there comparing semantic reasoners. If so, great--we could use those to build a sourceable list and avoid OR and SYNTH. But without those, culling based on notability builds a defensible kernel of an article that can withstand the slings and arrows of AfD. And instead of simply kvetching about ill-treatment of a topic by WP folk, please pitch in and help build this article on stronger foundations. --Mark viking (talk) 19:53, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * "Kvetching"? "Pitch in and help"? Sure, because it's not as if I ever create any content, is it.   WTF though would I ever work on SemWeb stuff, when key parts of it are up for blanket deletion if there's any question of article quality (which is no part of our conditions for deletion). A "defensible kernel of an article that can withstand the slings and arrows of AfD" is utter crap and totally against what WP should do, and used to do, per WP:IMPERFECT. We need an editing environment where editors are encouraged to contribute, and to do so gradually if that's what available to WP. What we have here is one that invites contributions from experts, then turns around and pisses all over them for no good reason.
 * If a project is even thinking that this topic deserves outright deletion and ignoring it from that point onwards (and that's what an AfD nomination is), a project that prioritises rappers and pokemon over a core SemWeb topic like this, then that's simply a project of no interest to the editors who might otherwise fix it. I don't know why, but WP does this whenever SemWeb topics come up. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:10, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You do create good content and I respect your contributions. I apologize for the kvetching comment. I agree that WP:IMPERFECT should be a guiding principle. But the reality at AfD is that "this article is horrible, let's blow it up per WP:TNT or WP:ESSAY or, etc." can be an effective strategy for deletion, even with a notable topic. For a worthy topic, IMO the best way to counter that complaint is to rewrite, or at least cut out the worst parts of the article. If you think I've cut out valuable parts of the article along with the promotional link spam, feel free to revert. --Mark viking (talk) 21:41, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Andy Dingley, I would like to reiterate that, as the nominator, I was in no way influenced by the fact that this article was about a "SemWeb topic". If articles like this were all being nominated by the same group of editors, it might be fair to think there was bias.  If there is such a group I don't know about them and certainly would not agree with them.  I didn't nominate the article because of its topic, but because of all the inappropriate content.  It looks as though several editors are working on improving the article and it will likely be kept.  If SemWeb articles are regularly being nominated for deletion, perhaps it's because those who write them are busily involved in their specialty and don't take the time to check on what type of information and sources should be in an encyclopedia article.  I too have had articles deleted that were on topics I felt were important, so I don't go around frivolously nominating articles on topics I don't like. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 23:37, 22 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete, fails WP:NOR. Stifle (talk) 17:24, 26 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep If the official website of the software listed calls it a "reasoner" of one type or another, and they are listed elsewhere as different types of "Reasoners" then its a real thing. I see http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/wiki/Category:Rule_Reasoner where they call some of the software on the list Rule Reasoner.  The first software listed has on its official website at http://bossam.wordpress.com/ where it calls itself an "ontology reasoner" and "semantic web".    D r e a m Focus  00:23, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * WP:TNT delete per WP:OR. Mostly unsourced article making weird claims and it's unclear why many of the inference engines it lists qualify for this category. There are only handful of examples that would properly qualify for this topic (but they are not given in this wiki article!) and they are all not-wiki-notable individually (Pellet, OWLIM, FaCT++, RacerPro), and all such proper examples are OWL-related, so they can be covered in the OWL article well enough. Another book covering the same stuff  calls this type of software (more appropriately) ontology reasoner. Perhaps redirecting this page to Web Ontology Language (OWL) is the best solution per WP:BLAR. If anyone find useful material in the page's history, it can be merged there later. But most of it fails WP:OR/WP:V as far as the claims go, starting with absurdly board definition etc. Someone not using his real name (talk) 10:57, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, the 'absurdly broad' definition in the lead is directly sourced to the first ref you give, a close paraphrasing/copyvio in fact. So that bit is verifiable. --Mark viking (talk) 17:06, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * If you prepend "In the field of the semantic web," (which is implicit in a book chapter about... duh... the semantic web, then the def is not absurdly broad anymore, but Wikipedia (as a whole) isn't a book about the semantic web, some context is needed before one defines "reasoner" in such terms (or equates facts with axioms). Someone not using his real name (talk) 19:01, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Also, that book is from 2010 and this article existed from 2007, so I'm not sure who copied who, just yet. The first version of the article didn't have the def, but I don't have the time now to investigate further right now. Someone not using his real name (talk) 19:10, 29 January 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(talk) 08:43, 30 January 2014 (UTC)




 * Keep Entirely notable article, certainly not a link farm Anne, and your Afd reasoning is dubious at best. Are you trying to get rid of the article because it has too many links. It a huge and expanding field. The article is clearly passes WP:GNG.scope_creep talk 15:17  02 Feb 2014 (UTC)
 * In Anne's defense, many non-notable links were removed after nomination. While I disagree that deletion is the best approach, I believe the nomination was done in good faith. --Mark viking (talk) 18:26, 2 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, the article has changed considerably. The version that I nominated had many external links in the body of the article, unsourced original research, and almost no sources for verification of the information .  However, according to External links, external links should only be in the "external links" section, not in paragraphs or bulleted sections in the main article, which should have wikilinks and citations instead.  It's not just that some of the links were to (apparently) non-notable web pages, but that they were there at all.  I too would rather see an article improved rather than deleted, but how do I explain to new users that they have to remove the external links in their articles if the experienced users don't have to do the same?  If every single link was to a world famous "Semantic reasoner", they should all be internal links.  Looking at the article now, it seems to me that some of the items that are currently in the "External links" section are actually references, and should be moved to that section, whereas the links next to the software items in the article should be either made into citations if they are links to published articles, or moved to the external links section if they lead to websites created by the software's developers. &mdash;Anne Delong (talk) 03:48, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment Sorry Anne. scope_creep talk 15:08 04 Feb 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep - This appears to be closely tied with Web Ontology Language, Knowledge representation and reasoning, Ontology language and Knowledge base. Organization of this information can certainly be improved but I strongly believe that deleting or discussion at AfD is not the best way to get there. ~KvnG 18:28, 8 February 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.