Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/X86 instruction listings


 * 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 no consensus. This is articles for deletion, not articles for transwiki. Nobody here argues for deletion. Whether the content should be transwikied somewhere is a matter for discussion on the target wiki. If it is transwikied, a proper deletion request can be made again.  Sandstein  08:16, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

X86 instruction listings

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)


 * Transwiki to Wikibooks x86 assembly Wikibook]. Fails WP:LISTN and WP:NOTMANUAL  Dr vulpes  (💬 • 📝) 08:06, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions.  Dr vulpes  (💬 • 📝) 08:06, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, or transwiki and soft redirect – This article absolutely does not fail WP:LISTN; there are tens of books on x86 assembly and its instructions as various groups, and many of those books include this list or at least subsets of it. But WP:NOTMANUAL applies, and the x86 assembly Wikibook could use it without controversy. I actually agree with what JPxG said below; it probably doesn't fail WP:NOTMANUAL, because it's not directly instructing people on how to write a program. There are a lot of instructions, but that's why the splitting was suggested. Ovinus (talk) 17:14, 30 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment: Transwiki makes sense to me. However, we should first determine a better target for x86 instruction set which currently redirects here. I'm not actually seeing a good list of notable X86 instructions elsewhere on Wikipedia. There's x86 and x86-64, neither of which include a list of instructions. x86 assembly language comes closest but doesn't seem to provide a list of a reasonable subset of notable instructions. Caleb Stanford (talk) 21:06, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the incoming links will be a problem. I think the ideal method would be something like x86 instruction set architecture, which wouldn't be an exhaustive list per se, but a description of the registers/architecture and a summary of notable instruction sets (Streaming SIMD Extensions, 3DNow!, ...). The question then is how much that overlaps with x86 and x86-64. I really don't know, but I'm guessing x86 should focus on the history and broad design aspects, while x86 ISA would be a bit more detailed (but not to the point of violating WP:NOT). Ovinus (talk) 21:12, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep, per what I said at the other AfD for discontinued instructions. I do not see a deletion rationale, nor can I come up with one myself. The information in the article is cited quite thoroughly, the subject of x86 instructions is obviously notable from any reasonable computer science standpoint, and it's written neutrally for the purpose of informing the reader. Yes, the individual instructions are not notable: that's why they don't have individual articles. Individual sentences in an article don't have to themselves be notable. I do not really see how it is an "instruction manual"; the closest comparison I can see is that it's about a technical subject. Perhaps it is more detailed and boring than the average reader would find interesting, but Wikipedia is not a supermarket tabloid (in fact it's WP:NOTPAPER at all) so we do not have to worry about how many eyeballs an article brings in to justify its existence. jp×g 21:44, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, the overwhelming majority of WP:NOTMANUAL pertains to the tone of writing that is to be used in articles; there are only a few limited examples (recipes, instructions, cheat codes, video game guides) that pertain to the actual subjects of articles themselves. It's not clear to me how this article is any of those things -- it's not guiding you through the process of writing code, providing tips, or carrying out any pedagogy at all, it's just a list of x86 opcodes (the fact that codes interpreted by the processor are called "instructions" is completely incidental and not what WP:NOTMANUAL is talking about). jp×g 21:49, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * (You may also want to take a look at Articles for deletion/List of undocumented x86 instructions.) Reading a bit deeper into how WP:NOTMANUAL is actually interpreted in practice, I agree. The article describes. We even have individual articles for certain instruction sets, and it would be nice to consolidate the instruction lists themselves. Ovinus (talk) 22:18, 4 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey @JPxG I wanted to give my reasoning for moving the lists of x86 instructions to wikibooks. First this isn't a database WP:NOTDATABASE, after reading some of the other posts on the other deletion discussions I think this is a better reasoning. Second two of x86 lists being proposed to move to wikibooks (undocumented and discontinued) only link to each other or and a couple "see also" links in a small number of articles. The x86 instruction listings article is a good split off the x86 article but it's really long and needs to be better organized which wikibooks can provide, it's had an article is too long tag since 2017 and no one has broken the article up or organized it. There's really no use for having just a list of instructions without context. For example compare the GNU assembly entry on wikibooks and wikipedia. When it comes to technical topics like this I don't really think the guidelines fit as well as they do in other subjects. Is x86 notable? Yes obviously. Is FMA3 notable? Probably. Is instruction VFMSUB231SD notable? Most likely not. I think moving this to wikibooks and then making an article about notable and x86 instructions for the x86 instructions and x86 instruction set pages (they are both redirects to this list) would be of a lot more use to the community.  Dr vulpes  (💬 • 📝) 01:37, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * An effort to split the instruction list into logical subarticles was started here and I think the proposed system is pretty good. Ovinus (talk) 01:47, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
 * Ooof I missed that completely sorry that’s on me. I’ll reach out and address this tomorrow morning.  Dr vulpes  (💬 • 📝) 06:03, 5 July 2022 (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.