Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Synthea


 * 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. Spartaz Humbug! 06:19, 1 February 2018 (UTC)

Synthea

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Obvious commissioned work for non-notable software that was an inappropriate AfC acceptance. It is excluded from Wikipedia by WP:NOTSPAM on it's face, but also fails the sourcing requirements found in WP:N. The sourcing is either primary, WP:SPIP, or press release churn and interviews. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:13, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Baby miss  fortune 04:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. Baby miss  fortune 04:39, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * I won't argue with this. It was a bad acceptance, I apologize. I'll be more careful in the future. – by AdA&D  at 16:26, 10 January 2018 (UTC)

Response from Initial Author
Apologies if my formatting is off. I am the initial author of the page and I wish to address the cited concerns WP:NOTSPAM and WP:SPIP.

Was this commissioned?

First as to whether the page was commissioned or whether the authors have a conflict of interest. I am user of the software. While participating on the issues board of the software project, I was contacted by User:Exception e who has been contributing to the page Talk:List_of_open-source_health_software. A letter was posted to the issue discussion board (text of the letter appears on the Talk page linked) asking for a wikipedia page to be created so that it could be included on the List_of_open-source_health_software. The maintainer of the Synthea project replied stating that he felt he could not initiate the page because of conflict of interest policies. As a user of the platform, I volunteered to write the page.

As stated, I have used the project in the course of my work as a data scientist in healthcare. I was first introduced to it when it was presented at a MIT conference in 2016. Shortly after that conference, I had lunch with the maintainers to provide feedback on some issues. I am not a contributor of source code nor do I have a financial interest in the success or failure of the project but I am user. I have reviewed the WP:EXTERNALREL policy and I do not think that would exclude me as contributing to the page but I will trust the editors judgement on the issue. In writing the article, I did contact a maintainer to request that an image used in the documentation be placed in the wikimedia commons such that is could be included on the page without a copyright issue.

Is the sourcing Press Release Churn or Interview?

The article does use a quotation from a article describing the project. However, the sourcing came from a peer-reviewed journal, Journal_of_the_American_Medical_Informatics_Association. While that source is fact-checked and reviewed, It was authored by the project maintainers and thus should be considered a primary source. Other sources included HIT Analytics.com, which is a secondary source. The project was covered by a named reporter and included outside perspective. The publication includes a clear masthead and is a known online newsletter.

The project and issue of synthetic health data has also gotten attention from other secondary sources, that are independent of the project, including:

HIStalk A daily news site that does not accept paid content well known in the HealthIT space. Huffington post Where the author summarized the industry challenges and stated the case for having synthetic health data. a 2017 paper accepted at the digital health innovation conference had heavy reliance on Synthea and was not authored by any of the project maintainers. I consider this article to be secondary as to its use of Synthea but primary in terms of the research presented.

There is also a book on the subject anonymizing health data that presents the issues plainly but was published before the Synthea software, noted here, was created.

I am happy to edit the article to make better use of these other sources

Is this software Notable?

This is the area I struggled with and I admit that I did not review WP:N prior to authoring the page.

I would argue it is notable for the following reasons:


 * it is authored by a company that clearly is notable Mitre Corporation.
 * the software is tied to a notable issue in the health technology space. Specifically Data anonymization and Health Informatics.
 * There are other software methods for synthetic health data already in wikipedia. Specifically, Datafly algorithm
 * Sources discussing this project are reliable and independent as stated above.

Alternatives to Deletion

I'd also like to propose three alternatives to deletion for discussion.

1. This article could be moved to the drafts space while we work to change the tone and update the sources used.

2. This article could be eliminated but some of the content moved to the Talk:List_of_open-source_health_software noted above.

3. This article could be merged with another article in the health informatics and software space.

Kindofluke (talk) 02:22, 11 January 2018 (UTC) comment added by Kindofluke (talk • contribs) 02:16, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Weak delete - don't believe WP:NOTSPAM applies here, but there are few secondary sources available to prove notability. I suspect this could well become notable within the next couple of years but there aren't currently any published papers using the software in research. It may be worth moving the article to the creator's user space to be revived if it becomes notable. I suspect it would stay in the Draft namespace for longer than is appropriate if we moved it there. PriceDL (talk) 04:59, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Alternative to Deletion / My 2 Cents - Hi everyone. I helped author the article as a person heavily involved in open source healthcare. I am not involved in Synthea but I am actually considering using it in an open source project that I help to run. I appreciate the discussion here so far, agree with Luke's points, and only wish to contribute these 2 cents:

I don't believe this article is spam or an ad. I agree that the article would benefit from being placed in a draft form where Luke and I can add more references for notability, which is good and practical feedback.

Thanks, Matthew Exception e (talk) 07:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 12:37, 17 January 2018 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete It must be really, really frustrating for the editors, having worked to get a new page through WP:AFC successfully, to have it immediately put forward for deletion. But I'm  really sorry, I don't yet see this quite meeting WP:NSOFT. Maybe it is WP:TOOSOON for this product. On Google News, all  I can find is articles about Synthea, the robot sex doll! Some good medical journal articles reviewing it might have cemented it.  I see no reason why the editor shouldn't take a copy back to their sandbox to retain to be worked on for later. Any editing should aim to shorten the article and keep it factual,  and less promotional in tone. I should also comment that I learnt more about what Synthea offers from the references than from the over-complex Wikipedia article. Sometimes less is more. Nick Moyes (talk) 00:41, 20 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Userfy - Per request above. During the rewrite, besides adding more sources, please do try to rewrite things a bit to describe better what the product does. Carrite (talk) 15:10, 23 January 2018 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 12:34, 24 January 2018 (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.