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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Note OS Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Note_OS

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 merge to Slax. I have given hardly any weight to the non-policy base keep votes and the establised users have a clear consensus. Maybe in while there will be enough coverage to justify breaking this out to a standalone but the consensus is that we are are not there yet. (non-admin closure) Spartaz Humbug! 18:18, 21 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note OS

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Note OS (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • Stats)
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Notability disputed. Linux-based operating system released yesterday May 25th (on its first stable version). Of the three references, two are primary and the other is an unreliable blog hosted by Wordpress. The "about" section of such site claims that "Saved Computing is a blog on computing, which also includes helpful tips, articles, and more." Hahc21 [TALK][CONTRIBS] 04:26, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Merge to Slax. I couldn't find any third-party references to establish notability, but we could mention it at the Slax article, seeing as Note OS was forked from the Slax distribution. It seems too soon for Note OS to have its own article now, but if third-party sources appear in the future then there's no reason why we couldn't restore the current version and improve the sourcing. — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 09:36, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:03, 27 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tow talk 22:28, 4 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, →Bmusician 02:48, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - User:Hiddenray said "Moreover, estimate the notability from external sources is a questionable way to estimate the worthiness of subjects". You are free to believe that but it is a widely accepted Wikipedia guideline and determines whether an article is kept or not. The reasons for this are not merely bureaucratic in nature, because without reliable third party references a proper encyclopedia article cannot be written and Wikipedia would simply degenerate into a blog where any opinion could be presented as fact. - Ahunt (talk) 17:33, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's an operating system you can download. It's not an opinion, it's there. I present this as a fact, because it is a fact. In a blog-like website any opinion can be presented as fact, but an operating system is not an opinion. It' something you can virtually touch... because unlike Google's Chrome OS - in this case - the article has been published after the release of the software. I explain this illogical thing in the post bellow. --Hiddenray (talk) 20:01, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
There is some good sense in what is written in the two pages there. Anyway, it's hard to image how any Apple's product is "notable" for the encyclopedia even before it's available on the market, but the same product without all the advertising wouldn't be notable even after. From this point of view, the free encyclopedia is more similar to a vacuum unit for advertising: the more the advertising is spread, the more the thing is notable. Also, the "identifying reliable sources" guideline is a bit strange, because the reliability of notable authors is up to you to decide. In the same way as a notable author is often notable only for his/her supporters. As Google is legally registered as an advertising company(!), i ain't surprised by seeing all of its products with a dedicated page and several categories (Google, Google services, ...). In fact, the history page says that the Google Chrome OS article has been created much before the actual product was available (yes the day after its announcement, this OS was already notable for Wikipedians...). The more i know about Wikipedia from the inside, the less it seems to me free (as in freedom) and open (as in open minded). Why was Google Chrome OS notable the day after its announcement, but a real operating system like Note OS is not notable? Perhaps because this encyclopedia isn't so much free, only who is big and can pay and can buy his notability in a day is notable, and this encyclopedia isn't so much open because its doors are closed to whom has another name rather than Google or Apple. In my first day my first impression as registered editor of this wiki, isn't much good.--Hiddenray (talk) 20:01, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum: example of a notable yet (at the time) non-existent operating system: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Google_Chrome_OS&oldid=300938345

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks, announced by Google on July 7th, 2009, to be shipped in the second half of 2010

— Wikipedia
announced by Google = automatic notability; announced = marketing/advertising/non-existent product --Hiddenray (talk) 20:29, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Looking for conspiracies in how the Wikipedia community decides notability is not the way to argue for keeping an article. Just because something exists does not mean it should have an article. I am quite sure that Note OS exists, but then my neighbour has a cat that exists too. There is no reason that the cat should have an encyclopedia article about it, though. As I noted above, the reason for requiring third party refs about a subject to have an article on it is not so that only subjects with big advertising budgets behind them get written up, it is strictly because you can't create an objective encyclopedia article based on what the subject sponsors say about themselves on their own website. The requirement for independent third party refs ensures that there are reviews and criticisms included and not just a rehash of public relations spam. Also there is no requirement that the authors of reviews and criticism are notable themselves. WP:RS requires that these be publications with editorial oversight and not just self-published personal blogs. This all adds up to a good deal of insulation against PR campaigns, because it requires these independent third party refs and no amount of company PR, blogging, Tweeting and Facebook pages will get a Wikipedia article created and kept.
To answer your question "Why was Google Chrome OS notable the day after its announcement, but a real operating system like Note OS is not notable?" Simply because many independent third party publications took notice and wrote reviews and stories about Chrome OS. As far as we can discover no one has written anything about Note OS outside those working on the project. That means there are reviews, positive and negative, about Chrome OS on which to base an article. In the case of Note OS there seems to be nothing upon which to base an article beyond what the developers of Note OS have said about it themselves. We don't accept Ford's opinions about how great their cars are, why would we do the same with a small Linux distribution?
There are articles on Linux distributions with no corporate backing, like Debian and Puppy Linux that illustrate that it is not advertising that counts, but third party references. These articles are here because there are reviews and criticims published about them that we can base an article on.
To be frank, we have been around the "non-notable Linux distribution" issue many times. The truth is that creating your own Linux distribution is not that hard these days, many thousands have been created and most are just personal hobby projects that land here looking for exposure on Wikipedia. The articles are basically promotional in nature and get deleted. - Ahunt (talk) 20:32, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My question: "Why was Google Chrome OS notable the day after its announcement, but a real operating system like Note OS is not notable?" Your Answer: "Simply because many independent third party publications took notice and wrote reviews and stories about Chrome OS" How is that possible? When the operating system has been announced, nobody had a chance to test it. Because it was non-existent. It has been announced, not published. The "independent third party publications" were Google's independent publications. The independent reviews of a non-available products (i guess) were based only on the propaganda published by Google or were written ... by wizards (?). And what about the exorbitant amount of personal point of views and speculations about "how will the world change with Google's OS?", notability via speculations?. I don't understand why non-notable Linux distributions are actually a problem, and thus why are some real/existent/available Linux distributions marked as non-notable. The number of ("non-notable") Linux distribution isn't infinite. The disk space of the servers is available. Why don't we accept everything that exists and people might look for. This is what i ask myself. In the end, the "notability" issue has the opposite result of its main purpose. All products sponsored by big multinational companies are always notable even from the very beginning, and everything else is just "nothing". This is not fair, and makes the encyclopedia biased by default. Note OS is not notable because (unlike Google) its authors were unable to ask and pay for "independent third party publications" and thus all the advertising. The amount of third party references is what a rich advertising company owning a search engine is able to obtain in a very short time. Google OS has its page on Wikipedia from before its existence, Note OS will have its page only if used by the NASA (and if they write about it). It's just unfair the way the two operating system,s both based on Linux, are treated. However, it's plain. It has been already decided this article about Note OS shall be deleted. --Hiddenray (talk) 21:38, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, actually it hasn't been decided that it will be deleted, if that were the case then this debate wouldn't have been re-listed twice to get more opinions, it would have just been deleted. If it gets deleted it will be strictly on the basis that no one anywhere outside the distro devs themselves has written a word about it anywhere. If Wikipedia included articles on non-notable subjects then we would have articles on every person, cat, dog and pet hamster that ever lived, all based on blogs and Facebook pages. Wikipedia would become nothing more than blog itself. The notability requirement was developed and is supported by the consensus of the Wikipedia community for that reason. - Ahunt (talk) 22:46, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I understand your point of view, but i disagree with it. I've well expressed my point of view already, and so i don't have to add anything else. --Hiddenray (talk) 22:53, 11 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
So what is the verdict, I am reading merge. ObtundTalk 00:06, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That is up to the closing admin to adjudicate, when this is finally closed, which should occur on 18 June 2012. - Ahunt (talk) 00:14, 17 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]
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.