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The result was keep - nomination withdrawn. PhilKnight (talk) 06:31, 4 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Transparent SMTP proxy[edit]

Transparent SMTP proxy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) –

Notability concerns - lack of significant coverage in reliable sources independent of the subject. PhilKnight (talk) 13:45, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep -- When I removed the prod, I added a some comments to the Talk:Transparent SMTP proxy page. This article is in bad need of references and isn't a very major subject, but it is notable enough for meet WP:N. The name may be badly chosen and is a little redundant since basically all "SMTP proxies" are transparent, otherwise they are just normal mail relays. There are lots of hits for SMTP proxy – news, books, scholar, along with similar variations on the name. Wrs1864 (talk) 17:58, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• • Saying there are plenty of hits isn't a valid keep argument. Could you link to a reliable source that provides non-trivial coverage? PhilKnight (talk) 22:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • as per WP:BEFORE, "When nominating an article for deletion due to sourcing concerns, a good-faith attempt should be made to confirm that such sources aren't likely to exist." A quick review of the books listed in the link I posted in the talk page and reproduced above shows that over half of them on the first page of search results would qualify as non-trivial coverage in reliable sources. The lack of references in this article is a very good reason to have an ((unreferenced)) template, but not a good reason to call for an AfD. If I had the time to pick out really good ones, I would just fix up the article, but I don't have much time this weekend, sorry. Wrs1864 (talk) 23:11, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Should we rename the article SMTP proxy? I agree there appears to be sufficient reliable sources for this search term. PhilKnight (talk) 00:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep SMTP is one of the major protocols on the net. The idea of an SMTP proxy is notable and should have plenty written about it. Squidfryerchef (talk) 19:44, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• • Declaring something notable is meaningless. PhilKnight (talk) 22:37, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

could you explain? that's exactly what I thought AfD was for, was to decide such things. DGG (talk) 22:48, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• • • If there is a notability guideline that indicates something is notable, that's obviously ok. In other cases, significant coverage in reliable sources is expected. However, saying 'x is notable' isn't a better argument than 'i like x'. PhilKnight (talk) 22:51, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Simply claiming it's notable theoretically accomplishes nothing without verifiable sources to back it up. MuZemike (talk) 23:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • If it's one of the major protocols on the net, that means standards committees have written papers for it, it's been ported to many different platforms, books have been written about it, it would have appeared in computer magazines innumerable times. SMTP is the main protocol used to send email; over a billion people have used it. It's a pretty safe assumption that hundreds of articles have been written on how to proxy it through a firewall. Squidfryerchef (talk) 04:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for clarifying. In your opinion, could this be used as a reference? PhilKnight (talk) 15:03, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(The O'Reilly Essential Systems Administration book) I think so. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:49, 3 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - I'll withdraw the nom. PhilKnight (talk) 06:31, 4 November 2008 (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.