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.
Delete. This is a completely indiscriminate directory listing of chat software. Do not be fooled by the blue links as they are circular redirects back to this very list. JBsupreme (talk) 22:33, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Links are good. Also has feautures listed. Has been around since 2009. -- /MWOAP|Notify Me\ 22:45, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep, quoting myself verbatim from the previous AfD: the article is much more than a directory, provides lots of useful -and often sourced, even maybe if not as thoroughly as it could be (but that's grounds for improvement,not deletion) information about a lot of notable software. There is nothing in policy/guidelines against this article. Also: Far from being an "indiscriminate directory listing", it is an exceptionally thorough and complete set of comparison tables. I cannot understand where is the "indiscriminateness". Moreover, the nom has already nominated the article less than 3 months ago, when it was speedy kept -renominating now is akin to forum shopping and the AfD should be closed per WP:NOTAGAIN: Frivolous renominations may constitute disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point, especially when there was a consensus to keep it in the past, or when only a short time has elapsed since the last nomination. (emphasis mine). --Cyclopiatalk 00:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, there is a de facto consensus on wikipedia that comparison articles are useful to the encyclopaedia. See Category:Software comparisons. --thommey (talk) 00:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep You went through this three months ago and the consensus was clear. Are you going to nominate this again in April? Resolute 00:37, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that the consensus was clear, in fact I would argue that the speedy keep was invalid to begin with. JBsupreme (talk) 00:41, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There was not a single delete vote in the previous AfD, and you disagree that consensus was clear? If it wasn't speedy keep, it would have been WP:SNOW: same result. You may disagree with consensus, but denying it is nonsensical. --Cyclopiatalk 01:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only thing nonsensical about the invalid speedy keep closure last time was allowing less than 24 hours of discussion when there should be five to seven days, depending. JBsupreme (talk) 01:53, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
To those who are only interested in hand waving, I strongly urge you to engage in the discussion on the talk page of this article which highlights just how indiscriminate this list is, thus violating WP:NOTDIR. The discussion has been going on for quite some time since the last deletion debate. JBsupreme (talk) 00:43, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
AfD is not a place for clean-up. If it is a directory than it needs to be cleaned up as there are notable IRC clients.--Crossmr (talk) 01:34, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Nonsense again. JBsupreme asked on talk page What criteria must an IRC client meet in order to be included in this list? - Ehm, like, being an IRC client? It seems a pretty definite and objective criteria. What further discrimination should be made? Perhaps one can argue that it has to be a notable one, and some of the criteria proposed in the talk page by Miami31339 may make sense: but as Crossmr rightly says above, it is matter of cleanup, and has nothing to do with deletion. --Cyclopiatalk 01:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cyclopia, are you suggesting that merely being an IRC client is enough for inclusion in this list? Wikipedia is not intended to be used as a promotional vehicle for non-notable products, open source or not, and that is precisely how this is being used. JBsupreme (talk) 01:51, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you can't understand the difference between being a thoroughly comprehensive list and being an indiscriminate and/or promotional list, I don't know how to help you. No one still explained convincingly why the list is indiscriminate, much less promotional. --Cyclopiatalk 17:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - it seems like a sufficiently discriminate list (only IRC clients allowed, and only if they are verifiable), and almost all of the blue links went to stand-alone articles at the time of nomination – those that didn't had previously existed, but had been changed to a redirect without updating this list. Seems like a viable (and genuinely useful) list. - Bilby (talk) 01:55, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please see WP:USEFUL. Verifiability is hardly a discriminatory criteria, which is why this directory listing (ahem, "comparison") should be deleted. Comparing 100 non-notable things together doesn't somehow make them collectively notable. JBsupreme (talk) 01:59, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, notability has nothing to do with content, except in regard to lists of people. WP:NOTE only applies to the existence of an article. The individual elements of a list don't need to be individually notable, but they do need to to be verifiable, as does all content, and discriminate, as is the case here. In regard to WP:USEFUL, I'm aware of it - I think we ignore the value of articles too often, but, even so, WP:USEFUL doesn't deny that usefulness can be a criteria for inclusion, and specifically mentions lists and tables as when usefulness can be a valid argument for inclusion. - Bilby (talk) 02:16, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually that isn't true. For general article content, notability doesn't usually apply. However, NPOV would (why give equal attention to something that hasn't received it), and more specifically Wikipedia:NOT#DIR which states Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic which does not put a focus on it being a list of people. Simply all lists. It gives a list of people as an example, but states such as (but not limited to) quotations, aphorisms, or persons (real or fictional). Any list regardless of topic is required to limit its entries to notable ones to avoid being a directory.--Crossmr (talk) 02:28, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's an incredibly long bow you're drawing there, to argue that NPOV means that we can't list "notable" and "non-notable" software in the same comparison list. :) I'm afraid I see that as stretching the meaning of NPOV just a tad too far. And the NOT#DIR argument you're pointing to refers to "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics", which isn't the case here. In general, it has been accepted practice in Wikipedia to group together articles which are non-notable on their own into a list, hence all of the "List of ... episodes" or "List of ... characters" articles, and WP:NOTE has been very clear that notability doesn't apply to content of articles except in regard to people. At any rate, how to make the list more discriminate, and whether or not it needs to be, is an issue for the article's talk. My point is simply that the list is discriminate, as it stands, even if some would like to see it made more so. - Bilby (talk) 04:18, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking as one of several major contributors who has spent a good bit of time reworking this article, including removing a considerable amount of material [3] (which unfortunately made some other contributors unhappy [4]) I can say with certainty that there are some inclusion criteria [5][6] that have to be met. --Tothwolf (talk) 04:57, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear - I'm not arguing that there is no need for inclusion criteria. I'm simply stating that notability is not required for list items. If editors agree to make it a requirement for a given article then they're welcome to, if consensus goes that way - but that doesn't mean you can argue that a list is indiscriminate because it doesn't list notability in its requirements. - Bilby (talk) 05:09, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My point was that the nom, et al. are claiming that no form of inclusion criteria are in place and that this article is an "indiscriminate list" and should therefore be deleted [7][8] or "gutted". [9] This despite the fact that they seem to be rather unfamiliar with the subject area as a whole [10][11][12][13] and only began this deletion campaign[14][15] after they discovered [16][17] that I edited articles in this subject area. We've come full circle here and I think I've said just about everything that needed to be said here. --Tothwolf (talk) 06:31, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Both of those links you've used don't' remotely establish sufficient criteria. You deleted one which wasn't an IRC client, which is obvious, and one which wasn't finished. Simply being "finished" isn't sufficient criteria for a list.--Crossmr (talk) 05:56, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, do we need to gut out large sections [18] from other articles such as List of neutrino experiments with red links and non-linked entries as well? Would you still be removing material which is otherwise verifiable with the references already in the article (but perhaps not quite notable enough on its own for a standalone article) if those red-link and non-link entries were instead categorized redirects which redirected to a subsection of a larger article? It seems as though we have a Catch-22 here in that we are/were already redirecting to anchors in this larger article for that very reason with quite a number of smaller articles already having been merged here. --Tothwolf (talk) 05:45, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes because we're not a directory or guide to all IRC clients. Wikipedia's concern is with notable topics. The subject of IRC is notable, individual clients may be notable, a comparison of those notable clients is appropriate to wikipedia. A comparison of ALL finished IRC clients, isn't sufficient criteria to support this on wikipedia.--Crossmr (talk) 05:56, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, we are not a directory or guide to all IRC clients. The clients that were included here (or otherwise planned for) are well known, popular, important, or otherwise unique in their features. Including all IRC clients in a comparison would not be feasible...there are 100s upon 100s of IRC clients, a great many of which no-one (and I mean no-one) has ever heard of. (Don't even get me started on all the people with their pet-project Visual Basic-based IRC clients...) --Tothwolf (talk) 06:19, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The only criteria we have on wikipedia for being "well known" is WP:NOTABILITY. Anything else is editorial bias and violates WP:OR. So if you agree that only well-known popular clients belong on the list that means they would qualify for the article. Thank you for supporting my position. You've just listed all the things that would satisfy notability as the criteria, which is exactly what I said it should be.--Crossmr (talk) 14:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Make discriminate The current contents are indiscriminate. That can be solved by removing most of it, but there is a valid comparison to be made here. I am not particularly fond of many Comparison articles, but this one can be fixed. Don't get me wrong either, it has to get fixed by deleting most of the content. Miami33139 (talk) 02:02, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but make discriminate. At a minimum only notable products should be listed on this page for comparison.--Crossmr (talk) 02:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
comment - this article sucks because it's an indiscriminate list of mostly non notable software. taking an indiscriminate, non notable list, and making a clumsy comparison chart out of them, only serves to make the article less encyclopedic. the article honestly isn't even encyclopedic in any way. it looks more like a random collection of mostly irrelevant irc clients, but packaged into a vaguely wikipedia-esque format. these non notable irc clients have to be removed ASAP, and any keep votes should be scrutinized for whether their reasoning is actually justified by policy. Theserialcomma (talk) 06:14, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete all the non-notable entries. Lots of indiscriminate information, remove all the redlinked programs. --Enric Naval (talk) 14:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep per WP:SK 2.4: "nominations that are clearly an attempt to end an editing dispute through deletion, where dispute resolution is a more appropriate course", and because nobody besides the nominator asked for wholesale deletion. I had closed this as a duplicate discussion of the talk page discussion, also intiated by JBsupreme: Talk:Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients#How is this list discriminate?, but someone here thought this exercise in futility should continue. There's also a RfC going on to decide a criteria for inclusion, which I hope will draw outside input, as the long term combatants are obviously deadlocked. Pcapping 20:15, 30 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep per Pcap. LotLE×talk 04:13, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep A good example of wp:standalone. I also note that the previous Afd from the same editor less than two months ago resulted in speedy keep.¨¨ victorfalk 06:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep An article that meets all viable criteria. Lots of IRC clients are notable and the information can be verified. The list combines key information about many closely-linked articles in an encyclopedic way. If non-notable client is removed, that is just fine. Don't throw away the basket because of one rotten egg. Arsenikk(talk) 10:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep. This should not have been re-nominated so soon after a closure of speedy keep, particularly when no new argument is being made & there was no attempt at a deletion review. Some list cleanup is certainly possible & I see that there are ongoing efforts to clean this up. While JBSupreme notes there is more to be done to clean it up, he has not made a compelling argument for why that cannot be done or why deletion instead of cleanup is preferable. --Karnesky (talk) 16:00, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My argument is that this is an indiscriminate directory listing. [19] It is clear that a resolution via editing is unlikely. Furthermore, all of the comparison data is original research. I hope that helps. JBsupreme (talk) 21:15, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
JBsupreme, please assume good faith. A number of editors, including myself spent a great deal of time not too terribly long ago adding references to this comparison article for verification purposes as well as verifying the existing data. While some errors were found during the process (and corrected), the majority of it was already accurate. While inline citations are great for written prose, a combination of embedded citations (also known as embedded links), footnotes using ((ref)), ((note)), etc, and inline citations work much better for large tables. It is not practical to add an inline citation inside each and every table cell (and the verifiability policy does not required this either), but it is quite trivial to link to the official documentation and/or website for the purposes of verifying the features and functionality of software as supported by WP:SELFPUB. --Tothwolf (talk) 23:32, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Under normal circumstances I am always assuming good faith, and this is no exception. What I meant by original research is that the comparisons are not published anywhere else, we (as a community) are creating the comparisons, in effect synthesizing from primary sources. Does that make sense? I know you will most likely disagree, but that is how I see it. JBsupreme (talk) 00:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Following this reasoning, every conceivable WP entry is OR, since any entry didn't exist anywhere else, we (as a community) are creating them, putting together information from sources. --Cyclopiatalk 01:10, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you missed my distinction between primary and third party sources? JBsupreme (talk) 01:34, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I missed it indeed, but what difference does it make? All WP articles are "synthesis" of primary,secondary, tertiary sources, in the meaning that they organize and summarize information from these sources in a structured fashion. Primary sources are absolutely fine for referencing content: they just don't count when dealing with notability, for obvious reasons. If this article is synthesis just because it takes information from sources and structures it, then every article is synthesis. --Cyclopiatalk 01:43, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Strong keep. This is a good way to compare the IRC Clients in a page of what they support. I think it should be kept Mmanley (talk) 21:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This list is a valuable information source, which is the purpose of a list according to WP:LISTPURP. Maybe it needs cleaning up, maybe not - but as someone said, this is not the place for cleanup. Also I'd love to see a real explanation about how this is indiscriminate. The inclusion criteria is explained in the title fgs! Is it the red links? All that means is you have opportunities to improve the wiki! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Go For TLI (talk • contribs) 01:41, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Lots of useful info, good content material for an article, plenty of relevant sourcing. Cirt (talk) 22:21, 2 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - valuable and useful information source - Alison❤ 00:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep - very useful information. fr33kman-simpleWP- 00:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep. Valuable information, well-sourced, shouldn't have been nominated again. Rebecca (talk) 00:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Case for deletion lacks substance. There is no policy to support the statement. --Hm2k (talk) 10:13, 4 February 2010 (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.