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 Delete as not having sufficient sourcing to satisfy the general notability guideline. Aaron Brenneman (talk) 16:17, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Webinos[edit]

Webinos (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)
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Ephemeral project, only just started. No independent sources. Does not meet WP:GNG. Crusio (talk) 09:18, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Instead of lamenting my behavior and attitudes, your argument would carry more weight if you would base it in policy. Please have a look at Wikipedia's notability guidelines. My position in real life is immaterial to this discussion. For what it is worth, I personally am part of a European network, too. We even published a peer-reviewed article about our network. But nobody among us has gotten it in their heads to create a WP article on a project that basically is not encyclopedic and does not meet WP's notability guidelines. There are databases where projects like this are listed, which do a much better job than WP could do, so we should not try to copy that. --Crusio (talk) 09:47, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • The question is not whether the project is significant, which it appears to be, but whether the article is encyclopedic, which it is not: it is a press release. Looking at the External Links, you've got your Website, your Facebook page, your Twitter feed, and your LinkedIn group; and here's your Wikipedia article: you've covered all the bases! It's a compliment to Wikipedia that online marketing campaigns today always want a Wikipedia presence. No guideline precludes an article functioning as an advertisement if stating facts of general interest has that effect, but an article that is only an advertisement inherently lacks the properties that an article must have. Many such articles are submitted each day and soon deleted. If you discover that competitors have slipped advertisements into Wikipedia, no filter being perfect, you have as much right to object as anyone else. See the Guide to deletion for details. Ornithikos (talk) 14:23, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
THIS ARTICLE IN THE LONDON TELEGRAPH details the Webinos project receiving €10M in funding. The project is described as a "A pan-European project aimed at developing common standards for application development..." Carrite (talk) 14:50, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I realize that many people ignore all bloggish types of material in AfD discussions, but there are substantial blog sources out there, such as THIS ONE FROM PAVING WAYS, which cites references consulted. Carrite (talk) 14:53, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD certainly feels the Webinos project is worthy of notice. Carrite (talk) 14:56, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And here is significant coverage of the Webinos project FROM THE BBC, which states of Webinos: "The Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (Fokus) in Germany is leading the effort, dubbed Webinos. It is a group of 22 organisations including mobile operators Deutsche Telekom and Telecom Italia, manufacturers such as Sony Ericsson and Samsung, and standards body the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)." Carrite (talk) 15:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Does it make any difference that the many sources referenced could have obtained their information only from the Webinos project itself? Who else could provide it? It is all the same information, repeated in every available format. This is the signature of a Marketing blitz: surely a valid endeavor, but not the stuff of an encyclopedia. Ornithikos (talk) 15:29, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, it doesn't make any difference. If four publications published four different interviews with John Smith about the new five wheeled bicycles he was building, the material they published could only have come from John Smith, bicycle builder — and Smith the Bicycle Builder would meet standards. Notability is considered a function of being featured in independently published sources — it is not a requirement for the subject to be completely isolated from the actual content which is published. Carrite (talk) 05:26, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So it's a crappy article... That's not the discussion here, of course. What we are interested in is whether the subject of this article meets Wikipedia's standards for inclusion-worthiness: being the subject of multiple, substantial, independently published sources. Webinos meets the General Notability Guideline, quite clearly. Fixing the article is a matter of fixing the article. Carrite (talk) 05:30, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you think you can extract actual information from this text, there it is: have at it. My contrary impression is that it is vague, meaningless, and uneditable, so confusing that nobody can be expected to follow it --- in other words, patent nonsense --- in addition to the neutrality issue. FWIW, lack of notability is not the only reason for deletion. Spam and nonsense can get deleted even if a case for notability could be made. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 19:06, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 20:11, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 20:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. — • Gene93k (talk) 20:12, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, not sure what to do here. It seems a newly-created user Dsr23 has done some work today (and nothing else). There still are many problems: many missing wikilinks paragraphs without sources, citations to dead links, self-written blog entries, and web sites that have nothing to do with webinos, for example. It is still not clear to me what the project does, and I have done computer networking for 40 years. It says "Apps" which means downloads to smart phones, but also jumps around to very different environments of Linux and televisions. Not sure if it is meant to obfuscate or just badly written. There also is too much crystal ball gazing. Speculation on how great something might be in the future does not belong. It would be like if a proud parent wrote an article about how their daughter was going to win an olympic gold medal in 2016. Even if the newspapers picked it up, self-sourced predictions are not encyclopedic. If they ever produce, say, a peer-reviewed paper in a respected journal, that might be cited. Every research project concerns the "future" so saying it does "research projects on future internet" is content free. As is "security and privacy by design"? Does anyone intentionally design something with flawed security? Makes no sense. W Nowicki (talk) 20:19, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am also a university researcher who works on (amongst other things) the webinos project. Before being kindly encouraged to take up a username, I was also editing under IP addresses 129.67.151.47 and 129.67.119.240. My edits were attempts to neaten up the page and rephrase to be neutral and appropriate for an encyclopaedia, having noticed the (in my view entirely reasonable) request for the original article to be deleted. I certainly can't deny that I have a conflict of interest. If you have a look at my edits, though, you will hopefully see that they mostly fixed links, introduced references and rephrased language to be clearer. From reading the COI guidelines, I realise that this might still be inappropriate ("strongly discouraged"), so please feel free to roll-back my edits and I hope you will accept my apology. I'm hopeful that the latest version of the article is now more appropriately written, and that webinos might be considered notable enough (due to media interest, academic papers, w3c demo page, book mentions) to be allowed to stay. If not, then is there a particular part of the article that still runs counter to guidelines and should be changed? As for the other accounts, I think Dsr23 is another member of the webinos project, but I don't know who Truthprovider66 and Umnako are. Jplyle (talk) 21:58, 5 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, its good to hear some straight talk at last! I don't think that anyone disputes the value of the webinos project itself, and nothing precludes a person from writing an article about something they have a personal or even financial interest in. Few would suffer the rigors of Wikipedia editing if they did not have a specific interest. The problem is just that a page about a research project does not meet Wikipedia guidelines. Being worthy is unrelated to being encyclopedic.
If one research project could have a Wikipedia article, every research project in the world would want one too. The result for Wikipedia would be catastrophic! I suspect that all the project-specific European Union research pages will be merged into more encompassing pages like Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development. Articles about such large-scale programs can easily meet the guidelines. Ornithikos (talk) 01:09, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
When I wrote the preceding Comment, I did not know how the deletion process works at the administrator level. I imagined that a deletion was like a content change, in which one of the participants eventually takes the point and does what appears to be necessary; except that the participant doing a deletion would also have to be an administrator. Evaluating a discussion of deletion from an independent perspective is obviously preferable. Ornithikos (talk) 23:21, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now, now, Carrite. Joining this discussion in flame mode, as in "little Assume Bad Faith shenanigans", will not improve the likelihood of a beneficial outcome. Nor, I'm sure, would you wish to stand behind the assumption of bad faith implicit in that characterization! This page has been the scene of a real debate, with valid challenges and relevant responses. Hopefully the tenor will remain so. That said, these questions: (1) The number of sources for Keeping this article is difficult to determine, because many of them seem to represent the same organization, as GiorgioGI himself implied. How do we know that we hear four independent voices? (2) Much doubt about this article has been raised with respect to Notability and Advertising. Could you detail the factors underlying your significantly different conclusions? (3) The References (which are rather more numerous than the guidelines prefer) are all or nearly all to webinos sites, news releases that echo the webinos marketing position, or other research projects whose status is similar to that of webinos. Could you clarify how such references constitute independent and substantial coverage? References to specific sections in Wikipedia guidelines that validate your conclusions would be very useful, since others have drawn such different inferences from some of them. Ornithikos (talk) 07:46, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Flame mode?!?!? Are you for real? I was being fucking polite. 1. New Conflict? - To User:Dsr23: Requesting a Conflict of Interest statement from you is now appropriate. Do you have a professional relationship with the Webinos project? If so, what is that relationship? Is it a paid or volunteer relationship? If the latter, does the project have any potential to generate income or other value for you in the future? Ornithikos (talk) 03:20, 5 August 2011 (UTC) 2. General Conflict? - GiorgioGI, who created the webinos article, answered a request for Conflict of Interest information by stating "I am a researcher for a partner in the webinos project and along with my colleagues in the project team we have worked in the last few days to update the webinos entry". That is to say, the COI level is 100%. The other contributors (Truthprovider66, Dsr23, Umnako, 129.67.151.47, Jplyle) all follow a pattern: they have no User page, they are obviously knowledgeable about the project, and they provide no COI information. They would appear to be the colleagues that GeorgioGI mentioned. If so, every contributor to the article has 100% conflict of interest. If the situation is otherwise, please provide correct information. Ornithikos (talk) 17:18, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
You're just lucky you don't get your ass run to ANI for garbage like that... Here's some reading for you: WP:AGF WP:NPA. Flame mode?!?!? What a crack up! Carrite (talk) 06:32, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here's how I saw it. I suspected that what seemed like several opinions were actually one opinion expressed through several proxies, and that some or all of those involved had an undisclosed interest in the project, which should have been described from the beginning. If true, that would be a very important thing to know when this article is evaluated. My approach was formally investigative, and it quickly got an answer from GiorgioGI, who described his COI in detail.
I inferred that the unnamed colleagues that GeorgioGI said are continuing to work on the article, were the people who had indeed continued to work on the article. I described that as an an inference and asked for any correction; none was received. One person replied by describing his own COI and offering to work constructively with Wikipedia. I replied to him that COI does not preclude a person from writing an article, the only question being the article itself.
I concluded that I had been correct: GiorgioGI and his colleagues, as he himself had described, were all chiming in, creating the effect of a body of opinion where actually only one opinion existed. I think that my investigation was honorably conducted and obtained some vital information. It did not cast aspersions on anyone. Neither did it ignore my initial and plausible suspicion that conflict existed. Assuming good will does mean blindfolding oneself.
I don't see that anger, obscenities, aspersions, and threats of retribution, whether or not these could be regarded as flaming, can help with the situation here. What this debate needs is opinions that relate to the article. Perhaps you could accomplish more by answering the questions I asked previously. I think that much could be learned by comparing and contrasting your conclusions with the very different conclusions that others draw from Wikipedia is not and Notability guidelines. Ornithikos (talk) 08:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not threatening you with anything. I don't run to mama when I think somebody is flaunting the clearly established rules, I make sure they know what they are and get a good taste of them. If they're still gonna violate them, that's on them. You're not the one closing this debate, fortunately, so don't go prancing around like this matter is settled. It's not. We're here to determine whether this is an ENCYCLOPEDIA-WORTHY TOPIC according to notability guidelines. I've got four unimpeached sources above. You've got a bunch of COI allegations. We'll see how this turns out, eh? Carrite (talk) 23:34, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You provide no answers to my questions, employ insulting characterizations, represent my support of the guidelines as a culpable violation of them, state as a rejoinder something we all agree on, and describe as allegations COI statements that the parties themselves provided. You have three supporters, of which two provided the COI statements and the third fits the profile described in the first COI statement. That does not discredit their opinions, it discredits your view of their disinterest. You have seven opponents with known Wikipedia backgrounds. You uphold your viewpoint with an interpretation of notability that is not to be found in the guidelines, though it does appear on your User page. Have you nothing of substance to bring to this discussion? I think the problem may be that things haven't gone your way so far and you blame me for it. Could my status as a Newbie be a factor? I am willing to talk about all such matters, but I ask that any personal disparagements appear on my Talk page, this being a Discussion page. Ornithikos (talk) 00:58, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Like I say, I've got links to 4 unimpeached sources above, including the London Telegraph, the University of Oxford Computer Science Dept., and the BBC. You, on the other hand, have nothing but a bunch of Assume Bad Faith COI charges and an obvious inability to grasp the concepts (1) of the policy of Assume Good Faith; (2) of the policy of No Personal Attacks; (3) of the function and daily practice of Articles for Deletion. Links to multiple, substantial, independently published sources dealing directly with this article subject are showing above. It is on YOU to either refute the fact that they are substantial and independently published, which you can't do, or admit that this topic meets Wikipedia's General Notability Guideline and remains a topic worthy of encyclopedic coverage. You have spent hundreds of words here; with a similar effort you could have fixed what's wrong with the article. Instead, you've taken the approach of non-stop harassment of anyone who disagrees with your OPINION about the inclusion-worthiness of this particular topic... Carrite (talk) 16:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Using the term literally, your sources actually have been impeached: by the claim, currently unresolved, that they are little more than webinos marketing releases massaged to have the style of the outlet that disseminated them. Webinos might be noteworthy, but such sources would not support it. Conversely, your sources may reflect third-party evaluation conducted objectively using reputable techniques. If webinos is noteworthy, such sources could support it. Thus more than a source count is needed. The rest of Carrite's response contributes only invective, so I will leave it to speak for itself. Ornithikos (talk) 19:17, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The "sponsoring" is an argument that has come up during several AfDs of European research projects. It is misleading. "Sponsoring" in these cases does not mean that the direction/leadership of these organizations at one point sat together and decided to undertake a joint project. It does not even mean that the upper echelons of these organizations are even aware of the existence of this project. Let me give an example. I hold an NIH grant. The paperwork, however, is not an agreement between the relevant NIH program officer and myself, but a document signed by representatives of NIH and CNRS, my employer. It would be rather misleading, however, to say that my project is "sponsored by NIH and CNRS". The situation here is not different. Researchers working at these different "partners" jointly applied for a Framework grant. That's all. So in this rare case I have to disagree with DGG about the presumption of notability here. --Crusio (talk) 01:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
right, individual sponsorship by an agency does not count towards notability, though it has been mistakenly argued from time to time. I'd never advocate it for articles like these--though it does matter for something more closely related, such as a journal or a prize. But that a considerable number of high powered institutions sponsor it, is another matter. If your work, for example your work at the CNRS were supported not just by them and the NIH, but also corresponding agencies in 5 or 10 other countries, might not such sponsorship mean something, as showing widespread recognition? That's what I meant. I'm aware that European Union projects are all in some sense intrinsically sponsored by all the countries in the Union, so this indeed might be a problem with this and the related articles, if that is all that's meant by sponsorship. DGG ( talk ) 02:41, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see your point, but I think you overrate the involvement of these different agencies. If I would want to apply for a Framework grant, I would look for colleagues with similar research interests in as many different EU countries as possible. I would then contact them and propose a collaboration. If they are agreeable, we would then discuss about an application. One of us (who's going to be the "coordinator") would then draft a grant proposal which would be circulated among these colleagues and amended as they see fit. Once we're in agreement, each one of us goes to our institution's signing official, who will sign the application on behalf of the institution. Without any exception that I am aware of, all that these signing officials are interested in is whether the administrative part of the application is correct and whether the proposed budget is sufficient to cover the cost of the project (as these things can get very complicated, these singing officials are often invaluable in finalizing this part of the application). They never evaluate the science (and in my experience, almost never even read the science part; after all, they are administrators, not scientists, and the different grant applications crossing their desks may cover a vast range of disciplines). The scientific part of the grant itself is only evaluated by a committee of specialists convened by the Framework organization, not by the different "partner organizations". I apologize for going in such detail on these procedures, but the workings of academia are sometimes rather arcane and very few people outside of research are aware of these issues, causing misleading impressions. In the case of Framework programs, it all sounds much more impressive than it actually is. --Crusio (talk) 02:55, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I accept your analysis, For some of the projects, it's very clear that there's not much substance. But as a guide, can you specify any that do cross the borderline into notability? DGG ( talk ) 00:46, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Difficult to say. As you said, perhaps we should take analogies to WP:PROF as a guidance. I'd accept as notable projects that have direct and significant coverage in reliable sources such as newspapers and such (because of a pass of WP:GNG directly - just as we do with an academic who does not passes WP:PROF itself). I would not take the existence of an academic article as evidence of notability, not even if the whole article was about the project itself. The reason is simple and again analogous to WP:PROF: all academics publish, so all projects produce publications, too. Only if those articles themselves generate large numbers of citations would this start to indicate notability. As most of these Framework projects only recently finished (or worse, only recently started), I don't think there will be many (perhaps none) that would have produced already now highly-cited papers. Does this make any sense? --Crusio (talk) 04:30, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This claim is implausible. The originator of this deletion proposal, Crusio, is a leading European researcher in an unrelated field. The page Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development shows no bias and has grown recently to encompass EU projects similar to webinos, like SUPER and ISTAG. My own bias strongly favors EU telecom and network projects, because I resent the way the US has manipulated international developments to further its own hegemony. I suspect that the "bad reputation" that Smerdis of Tlön refers to reflects some resentment caused by this publicity campaign. However, objection to a specific deed does not show bias towards the doer.
We are counseled to assume good faith unless facts show otherwise. I had some doubts about the original contributors, but they addressed those doubts by forthrightly describing their interests, which having been stated are not problematic. The only relevant question is whether the webinos article passes or fails the guidelines about Notability in Notability guidelines and Advertising in Wikipedia is not. Reasonable people might differ on such a question. I ask Beagel, as I unavailingly did Carrite, to address that question by citing guidelines and showing how they support Beagel's views, particularly where others appear to have used those same guidelines to support opposing views. Ornithikos (talk) 15:07, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Reply to Ornithikos. DGG has made three comments in this discussion page–all of them are valid, including Keep but rewrite to remove the jargon. I fully agree with all these comments, particularly about rewriting to remove all PR jargon. So, I don't understand what you are talking about 'DGG later changed that input'? As I commented that I will sign from my side above-mentioned comments by DGG, I don't have to answer any other questions. There are several good sources to meet WP:GNG and WP:ADVERT could be solved by editing/rewriting, and not necessarily by deleting. My remark that some comments are biased (and it still seems that certain bias exists) was not an argument for keeping the article, but just recalling, that being the Framework Programme project IS NOT a reason for deletion and that comments about this like I cited in my original comment, are not helpful in the AfD process. I also never implied that opposing keeping this article reflects bias against the EU. This is not a good faith interpretation of my comment. Beagel (talk) 20:55, 11 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I may well have overgeneralized DGG's statement to Cruzio, who first proposed deleting the webinos page, when DGG wrote that that "I accept your analysis." If so, I'm sorry that I did it, and I retract anything I said or implied that isn't so. Of course you don't have to answer any questions. You and others have cited the same sources to opposite conclusions, and some of them have described their reasoning, so I would like to understand yours also. Perhaps I misunderstood your comments about bias and the EU, and if so I regret that too. I was responding to "some comments ... seem to be biased against EU research projects" by expressing my opinion that bias was not a factor. The interested parties having identified themselves long ago, I am aware of no COI or bias operating anywhere in this discussion, nor of any standing claims to the contrary. That said, I wonder if we might now turn to focusing on the question rather than one another. As far as I know, the question is: what do the Wikipedia guidelines, correctly understood and applied, indicate should be done with respect to the webinos page? Ornithikos (talk) 03:13, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Conflict of Interest Guidelines define COI as occurring when "advancing outside interests is more important to an editor than advancing the aims of Wikipedia". So the problem is not Interest but Conflict. The guidelines strongly encourage editors to describe any relevant Interests, but do not require it; and they strongly discourage Interested parties from editing, but do not preclude it. What seems to matter is not the creation process but the result of that process. An article is itself, no matter who or where it came from.
Here is a thought experiment could help detect conflict. Suppose another project existed, say netinos, that is so similar to webinos that almost anything said about one could be said about the other. The projects began independently and grew rapidly. Both have now applied for funding, but only one can win. The other will be cancelled, and contracts prevent its staff from transferring to the winner. Could you, with equal objectivity and equanimity, write about the competing netinos project exactly as you have written about webinos?
Everything comes down to one question: does the article follow the principles in Notability guidelines while avoiding the proscriptions in Wikipedia is not, and otherwise conforming to Wikipedia guidelines? Notability is often subjective, and the line between description and advertising is even more so. Opinions can differ radically, as the above Discussion shows. The guidelines about references that you asked for are Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources and Wikipedia:Citing sources. Ornithikos (talk) 07:04, 13 August 2011 (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.
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