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. Scott Mac (Doc) 23:00, 29 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

UVa Online Judge[edit]

UVa Online Judge (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)

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I'm not seeing independent coverage of this software, just because it exists and has its own website isn't grounds for inclusion. MBisanz ^talk 03:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- -SpacemanSpiff 04:07, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. It's a stub, but it has two independent 3rd party sources cited already. Add more sources and content, don't delete it. LotLE×talk 05:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. This would appear to be an academic product that has a variety of Scholar hits that would appear to be significant and pertinent. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 15:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per above and per also numerous book sources. --Cyclopia^talk 16:56, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete - Promotional stub. Academic works are not notable in and of themselves, see Wikipedia:Notability (academics); no evidence of significant impact or 3rd party coverage. EeepEeep (talk) 21:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you linking a guideline for academic people in an article describing essentially software? And, ehm, we have linked significant 3rd party coverage above? --Cyclopia^talk 21:34, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There are no guidelines for academic software, but the guidelines for academics are closely related and provide a useful reference for accessing notability. Academic publications do not constitute significant 3rd party coverage. EeepEeep (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

According to WP:N, academic publications do constitute significant 3rd party coverage. Joe Chill (talk) 22:02, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: Per [1], [2], [3], [4], and [5]. Joe Chill (talk) 22:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:N does not say academic publications are notable. The issue is that academic communities are highly focused and closed to the outside world - you could be the top person in your field but completely unknown.

Does this topic have any significant coverage outside of the small community in which it is used? None of the references you listed show significant 3rd party coverage - they are just papers written by academics in the field. Where is the evidence of impact and coverage outside of the field? A google search just yields UVa and ACM related links. No coverage by mainstream press.

It could be a section on ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest if appropriate, but it's not notable enough to have it's own article. EeepEeep (talk) 22:17, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Having no impact outside of its field doesn't equal non-notability per WP:N or anything else. WP:N says that it accepts reliable sources which they are. Smerdis tried to put that bias opinion in a software proposed guideline, but everyone except him turned it down. Joe Chill (talk) 22:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like you're missing the point of my objections, but we'll see how the deletion discussion shakes out. You might want to take a look at this other current academic deletion discussion. EeepEeep (talk) 22:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not missing the point. I see the same comments from Miami and Smerdis, and their bias opinions never win in software AfDs. What really makes no sense from you is linking to academic people. How do you expect software to meet criteria for biographies? Joe Chill (talk) 22:57, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nowhere it is needed, for notability, coverage "outside the field". Quite the opposite: one of the best advantages of an encyclopedia is to give information to the public also of things that are usually known only within a field (provided sources exist somewhere). I'd say it is hard to find something more WP:RS than scientific academic press, and therefore academic papers about a subject are a strong indication of notability -probably one of the strongest possible. Your request of "mainstream press" coverage is nonsense: what's the point in requiring (probably) bad sources when you have (most probably) good ones? --Cyclopia^talk 23:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, since you're focused on a minor issue that's tangential to my main argument, I'd say you're missing the point. And the rest of your comments make no sense. Who's Miami? Smerdis supports keeping this article. What makes their views biased? Are there specific other software AfDs that establish relevant precedents we should consider?

I merely suggested that Wikipedia:Notability (academics) could be a useful starting point for establishing notability in a related area that lacks its own notability guidelines. If publishing a large number of papers in academic journals doesn't establish significant notability to be included in wikipedia, why would a system that's only mentioned in a few papers be notable? Wikipedia is not a scientific journal, so we shouldn't be listing information that's only mentioned in or of interest to a scientific journal.

I don't find any of the references compelling; they merely mention that the system exists without establishing impact or importance, see Existence ≠ Notability. That's my opinion, you're entitled to disagree. EeepEeep (talk) 23:20, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If publishing a large number of papers in academic journals doesn't establish significant notability to be included in wikipedia, why would a system that's only mentioned in a few papers be notable? - Because you're missing the entire point of WP:N. If author X publishes 100 papers, but there is no source whatsoever on X, X is not notable, primarily because it is not verifiable: there is nothing about X that can be reliably written. If however there are 5 papers all together talking about object Y, this satisfies WP:GNG: there are several third-party sources covering the subject. Also, you have to explain me what has to do WP:NOTPAPER with scientific journals. Please, read policies and guidelines before citing them. --Cyclopia^talk 23:26, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's your opinion, the notability guideline disagrees. At the moment, WP:ACADEMIC is irrelevant to software. Smerdis appears to have changed his opinions since Wikipedia:Software notability failed. Joe Chill (talk) 23:31, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, sorry, that should be WP:NOT PAPERS. I really don't see how this topic has significant coverage. Again, my opinion, and I'm allowed to express it. Clearly not everything that's mentioned in a handful of academic papers is notable, and nothing in WP:N contradicts that. I've done significant research and published in the field of CS Education but have never heard of this system. On the other hand, I can name several academics who have published large numbers of papers, are frequently cited by other academics, are considered highly influential leaders in their field, and have received significant amounts of coverage in the mainstream press but don't have wikipedia pages. EeepEeep (talk) 23:45, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And if you don't see how WP:ACADEMIC is a useful starting point then I'm at a loss. It's clearly the closest related topic. Wikipedia has few hard-and-fast rules, but we need some guidelines here.EeepEeep (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But in fact we have the guidelines we need: WP:GNG. --Cyclopia^talk 23:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, didn't see the part above in your comment. WP:NOTPAPERS is a guideline about style, not about content. And yes, everything that's mentioned in a handful of academic papers is notable by definition, per WP:GNG. The rest of your comment is satisfactorily answered by WP:IDONTKNOWIT and WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEXIST. --Cyclopia^talk 23:55, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is that there is no mention of software on the guideline so it is irrelevant. Joe Chill (talk) 23:53, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Joe, you'll notice I only said that WP:ACADEMIC is a useful starting point for establishing notability of other academic related topics. If software were specifically mentioned, it wouldn't be a starting point, it would be an established guideline. I'm merely suggesting applicability in the absence of an established guideline. If we just apply WP:GNG, this topic fails. EeepEeep (talk) 00:06, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If we apply it, it doesn't fail. Joe Chill (talk) 00:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also, bear in mind that guidelines like WP:ACADEMIC (which putative relevance here is surrealistic, but oh well) never override WP:GNG. That is, if a subject doesn't pass a guideline but passes WP:GNG, the subject is notable. Other guidelines are to complement GNG, not to substitute it. --Cyclopia^talk 00:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I never suggested WP:ACADEMIC should override WP:GNG. I merely mentioned it as a point of reference for discussing a related topic that falls into some grey areas of WP:GNG. If WP:GNG were cut-and-dried in every case the guidelines would never have been created in the first place. Your opinions don't overrule mine; the whole point of an AfD discussion is to give multiple editors a chance to express their opinions. You feel this topic is notable and gave your reasons, I don't and gave my reasons. EeepEeep (talk) 01:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Weak keep. Off the top of my head, I would have said delete because most grading software isn't notable. But this seems to have some coverage in academic papers and a book on preparing for ACM contests [6] (some of this text appears to have been recycled in other papers by the same authors) [7] (contest prep book) [8] (round-up of on-line judges on p. 7). So, it is more notable than the average grading software. Also, a distinction must be made between academic software written to illustrate some idea, and software used in academia. This falls roughly in the latter category, so it needs to be treated as any other software, and it has independent secondary coverage WP:GNG which is not just due dilligence in reporting related work in academic papers. Pcap ping 22:32, 22 January 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.