Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stimulsoft Reports

:{{la|Stimulsoft Reports}} – (View AfDView log)

:({{Find sources|Stimulsoft Reports}})

Despite the references and awards, I am dubious about the notability of this software product. The author has an obvious COI. — RHaworth {{toolbar|separator=dot|talk | contribs }} 11:52, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Keep This is a poor article that makes no effort to describe its subject, other than to list brandnames. If we were permitted to WP:DELETETHEJUNK (oh happy day!) I would cheerfully delete it.

: The subject is a crappy report generator in a crappy sector (M$ platform, with the usual blinkers that introduces) of a business sector that is dull at best and more usually a stinking swamp of awful software sold to ignorant fools in suits. None of these products show any spark of creative wit or deliver a result that is a patch on what they ought to be. Their authors should be beaten around the ears with the collected works of Edward Tufte, probably on a daily basis, until their morale improves. This product's one saving grace is that at least it's not the far worse, and thoroughly superannuated, Crystal Reports. As you might guess, this is my day job.

: That said, it's a clear pass for WP:Notability. It exists in the market, the relevant publishing bodies in that market have paid the necessary heed to it. One even gave it an award, which just shows how low the bar is for the rest of them. Per WP:POLICY, we're stuck with this. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:00, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:48, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

:Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:48, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

• Delete. Another advertisement for non-notable back-office software: software manufacture in the sphere of Business Intelligence, data analysis and processing – reporting tools for various platforms, keeping full compatibility between products. Petty trade awards are to notability, as the Valentine cards your teacher made you give to every member of the opposite sex in your fourth grade class are to true love. Those are the only evidence for notability here, and I find nothing better. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 14:41, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
• Keep per Andy Dingley -- Michel Vuijlsteke (talk) 17:54, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
• Keep per Andy. Our job is not to judge what ought to be notable, but what is. If this is notable in the field, so be it. If we're going to judge what fields are worth being notable in, we're going have some arguments about some genres of popular entertainment, etc. DGG ( talk ) 00:02, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

:*Comment. I can't accept that inclusion in a list of "Top 100 Publisher Awards" (sorted alphabetically)"[http://www.componentsource.com/services/publisher/awards-2009-2010-publisher.html], or a bronze medal in "Business Intelligence and Reporting" from "SQL Server Magazine"[http://www.sqlmag.com/article/encryption2/sql-server-magazine-editors-best-awards-2008/3] are the sorts of coverage that confer notability. Inclusion in a top 100 list only confers notability if it does so for every listed product. All of these listings lack depth. "SQL Server Magazine" and "componentsource.com" both strike me as canonical examples of "media of limited interest and circulation". None of this stuff establishes notability, and I do not see anything better in news searches. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 02:40, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

::: SQL Server, Vis Studio & ComponentSource are niche publications. They're not even interesting to software development, they're only relevant to the M$ platform part of it. Yet within that niche, they're important publications - and M$ have a big table, so the crumbs from it feed a very large number of developers. I do not see "limited interest" as applicable here, any more than "Baseball Monthly" should be excluded because it only discusses baseball. We do cover narrow topics. We exclude only if the subject or the source is considered too narrow, within their own scope of relevance.

::: I too don't see that inclusion on a top 100 list or a bronze award alone as terribly significant in isolation, but they weren't awarded in isolation - the product had also been reviewed & described in more detail, by the same publication. Andy Dingley (talk) 08:40, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

::::The real question for me is, do those reviews establish that this particular software represents the sort of leap forward in the art that gives it long term significance in the field? Or is it just one of many such products whose active life span can be measured in years at best? and will be abandoned as soon as something better comes along, or (likelier) that the technology it depends on is replaced when something better comes along? Ephemeral products like that need to show more than existence or even market share. Because notability is not temporary, these things need to be examined from the viewpoint of geologic time. Without significant effects on history, culture, or technology, of the sort that will be felt outside IT departments, I don't see this as belonging in an encyclopedia. Especially not if we're also faced with the problem of commercially motivated conflict of interest. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 13:15, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

::::: [Does] this particular software represents the sort of leap forward in the art that gives it long term significance in the field?

::::: Of course not. Now find a policy-based reason why it has to and then we can delete it, along with 90% of other products in the same categories. Then we can extend the same principle to Brandon Spoon (a player notable only for never having done anything notable) and today's latest, Oakton, Australia. However I know of no such policy, only WP:Notability, based on the notice taken of it now. For that matter, judging "long-term" would surely involve both WP:CRYSTAL and WP:OR. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:34, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

::::::If foretelling the future or original research is needed to sustain the notability of a piece of back office software, it would appear to follow that the software is not notable and should be deleted. From the beginning, when "notability" was first mooted as a criterion for eligibility for a stand alone article, notability has always meant long term historical notability, and ought always to be read with that in mind. This is why hardly any back-office software is notable, and the sources ought to at least verify a claim that it represents some kind of technical advance or has some kind of cultural or historic significance. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 16:04, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

::::::: Wow. A redirect from the WP:ALLCAPS namespace to a userspace essay. POV much? Andy Dingley (talk) 17:00, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

{{outdent}}

I didn't set it up, but it's handy, so I'll use it. Never made a secret of where I was coming from, and I wrote that mostly to avoid repeating myself all that much. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 19:01, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

: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.