Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lisp2dot

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page, if it exists; or after the end of this archived section. The result of the debate was No consensus (5 votes keep, 3 votes delete). Scimitar 19:18, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

9 Google hits, only 3 from outside the author's university. I'm sure it's a nice program and the author finds it quite useful, but it's no lsof. --Xcali 16:25, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Nice little tool. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 17:09, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes, but is it notable enough for an encyclopedia? That's really what I meant by my comment about lsof. I wasn't saying that it wasn't useful; it's just not very widespread like lsof. --Xcali 20:06, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't apply notability to computer software. This is a pretty useful piece of open source software in a field I'm very familiar with. If I encountered it I might want to look it up on Wikipedia, so other lispers writing documentation probably would too. I trust my judgement. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 20:48, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Just not encyclopedic. --Tabor 23:41, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep if expanded, agree with Tony Sidaway. JamesBurns 01:04, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Zero possibility of expansion. The source code for this utility is <100 lines. It's a tiny awk script that is basically the software equivalent of a substub. Software is actually an excellent place to apply notability criteria because it's usually straightforward. In general software is simply not encyclopedically notable unless it has a significant user community or it has historical significance or it employs a novel algorithm. It's a very bad sign if the only available information is from the author's site, or verbatim copies of the author's description. Notable software will almost always be reviewed or discussed on other sites. Without this you have the software equivalent of original research. Quale 09:01, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment. Not original research. The sofware can be verified and its results confirmed by examination and testing. --Tony Sidaway|Talk 10:37, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment. First, that's simply false in general, because in many cases software can't be verified by wikipedia because of environmental requirements that are hard to meet. With commercical software verification can be hard because it may require purchase. Now, directly to the point. Who has done this verification? If no one has had any interest in verifying or saying anything about this software at all, and wikipedia alone has to do the verification, it is original research and vanity to boot. I'm challenging you to find a single site other than the software's home page that has anything interesting to say about lisp2dot.Quale
    • Comment: I don't understand what you're trying to say here, Tony. Of course, it's verifiable. The software exists. The question at hand is whether or not it is notable enough to include in an encyclopedia. I've written many useful scripts, including some that I've posted on the web. Just because they work doesn't mean they should have articles about them. --Xcali 04:26, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• keep, I also trust Tony's judgement. Kappa 14:04, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Delete non-notable utility. Gazpacho 04:02, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Interesting and expandable, despite being <100 lines of code. No apparent downsides to having this article on Wikipedia. Factitious 10:25, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep NSR 10:26, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be placed on a related article talk page, if one exists; in an undeletion request, if it does not; or below this section.