Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BrowseAloud (3rd nomination)

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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 No consensus but discussion on a repurposing needed. Complex discussion, so I'll need to write a little:

  • As framed, the question is essentially whether the software is notable on its own, or whether it's its use in cryptocurrency hacking that is notable, or whether it's not notable in either form. Headcount is 10 delete versus 13 keep. The keep camp advocates on the basis of there being substantial sources, but the delete camp has rebutted that most of such sources appear to pertain to the hacking incident more than the software itself which is mentioned in passing (as GNG notes the sources need to discuss the topic directly and in detail) and that the only sources about the software are questionable (RoySmith, Hut 8.5 and Masem), and I don't see this argument being contested very well: Some keep !voters are trying to contest this on the grounds that the software is widely used but I don't see any guideline that would establish that this makes a software notable (WP:NSOFTWARE). There are some bare assertions that the sources satisfy GNG either on their own or in combination (the question being: is a very large amount of short/not very significant mentions sufficient to establish GNG notability?) and one barely discussed award (Pigsonthewing).
  • A third option proposed by some (e.g Masem and Alfie) is to repurpose the article into being about the hack or about cryptomining in general. Only a few people have disputed this option, mainly on NOTNEWS grounds (Nyttend, Hut 8.5), most of the keep camp hasn't addressed it in detail and of the delete camp other than the aforementioned NOTNEWS point there is little opposition either. As framed the NOTNEWS point really only applies to repurposing the article into being about the hack; it doesn't apply to repurposing it into being about cryptomining but it is not as simple as a move. And to be fair, NOTNEWS seldom carries the day at AfD or so it seems to me, given that it's a very broad policy and difficult to apply to a specific deletion discussion.
  • There is also a separate NPOV question as raised by Only in death and Szzuk. As for the NPOV dispute, it seems like a disagreement about how much of the article should cover which aspect, thus an editorial dispute rather than a matter for deletion.

Based on my reading, the delete argument is somewhat more compelling than the keep one but it ain't a slam dunk owing to the little discussed award (NSOFTWARE mentions such as a keep argument, although it's an essay so not a very weighty argument) and the fact that it's not clear if all the sources about the software are unusable (see Icewhiz and Masem). For repurposing, a straightforward repurposing of the article into an article about the hack is problematic owing to the NOTNEWS policy, while repurposing the article into being about cryptomining has been discussed only a little and I don't see any substantial opposition argument. My sense is that we don't have consensus for deleting this altogether but also not for plain keeping without substantial repurposing work, and it's not clear what form that work should take. So I shall close this as no consensus with a recommendation to have a repurposing discussion where NOTNEWS points and such can be hashed out. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:45, 2 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

BrowseAloud

AfDs for this article:
BrowseAloud (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Procedural nomination as (early)-closing admin of this car crash of a DRV discussion. The question is whether the subject as it stand now has received significant coverage in independent reliable sources for notability. KTC (talk) 15:00, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep Not only has there been a massive amount of international press coverage in the last week or so - https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=BrowseAloud&tbm=nws - but in rewriting the article to include some of it, I added a source showing that the award won in 2004 was presented by the New Statesman, a significant national publication, which itself confers notability. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 15:15, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: 19 reliable sources so far, more will likely become available given the recent developments. I assume if this is kept it will get nominated again.... John Cummings (talk) 15:17, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per my comments at the DRV: All the recent news items are related to its use a vector in recent cryptocurrency malware, despite Andy's denials at DRV that an update wouldnt be focused on that, the entire article after his 'improvements' now consists of a description of what it does, followed by almost all the body of the text being about its use as bitmining malware. Great article there chief! I'm glad you included all those updates NOT related to it being used in malware. THE ARTICLE IS CLEARLY FULL OF THEM. Its essentially now an attack page on an otherwise userful piece of accessibility software. Wonderful. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:27, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • "despite Andy's denials at DRV that an update wouldnt [sic] be focused on that" You alleged "at best an updating of the article would include 'used in 2017 to mine bitcoins'" and I - quite correctly - replied "No, an update would not "at best include an updating of the article 'used in 2017 to mine bitcoins'". Your assertion has no substance.". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:05, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • And yet your update focused almost entirely on that. So any more bullshit you want to peddle? -edit- Oh I see what you mean, I said in a 'best case' it would have a one line update regarding its use in malware, whereas what you *actually* did was at the other end of the scale and bloat a stub article on non-notable software by expanding an otherwise completely non-notable event to dominate it and turn it into an orgy of an undue attack piece. Sorry I wont suggest in future you might take the best case option. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:42, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Attack page. Once attacks are removed it is NN software. Also see my comments at DRV. Szzuk (talk) 15:46, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. MT TrainDiscuss 16:04, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. MT TrainDiscuss 16:04, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, the references are primarily about the event, not the software. This is an article titled as being about software, but is really about an event that would almost certainly fail NOTNEWS if covered in its own right. While not a BLP, it's a classic example of coat racking and single event coverage. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, none of the references suggest why BrowseAloud is notable in and of itself, just a bunch of passing references to it as one of the many pieces of software used as a vector for malware. The references are reliable, but they aren't about the subject of this article. Fish+Karate 16:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. The article is not about the software, it's about cryptojacking. 13 out of 19 references are about the cryptojacking incident, including the very first reference in the lede. Most (80% or so) of the article text is about that incident as well. Of the other sources:
    • AVSM: a page about accessible websites in general, which mentions BrowseAloud as an example. Has some limited value as supporting material, but doesn't do anything for WP:NSOFT#Inclusion.
    • Morpeth Herald: More about how NHS is using assistive technology. Yes, it's about Browsealoud too. This isn't a bad source, but not enough to establish WP:N per WP:NSOFT#Inclusion.
    • New Media Awards: some dumb low-budget award. Meaningless as far as WP:N goes.
    • Paul Liversidge: A mailing list posting???
    • Karl Groves: Some blog post / self-advert by a tech consusltant. Worthless.
And, my own searching found nothing better. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:48, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've hacked the Controversies section down to a small fraction of it's original bloat. Some of this was simple tightening up of fluffy and verbose writing, but I also eliminated most of the trivia. Nobody needs to know, for example, that a server hacking was malicious, or that running computationally intensive code reduces your battery life. With that crap gone, the Controversies section is still two thirds of the article text. I left all the references in, but I can't guarantee that the correlation between stated facts and the sources to back them up still makes a lot of sense. If we ended up keeping this, it would be worth another pass to prune the carpet-bomb of sources down to the best ones. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:23, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And, for reasons that elude me, User:Pigsonthewing has put all that bloat back. Whatever. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:29, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
If they elude you, you haven't really looked very hard. I gave my reasons in my edit summary. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:32, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The edit comment said, Restore cited content and remove uncited false assumption. I don't see how that explains why you think your version is better. Yes, it has more content, but more is not better. Also, I don't know what uncited false assumption I made. -- RoySmith (talk) 14:48, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in a quandry here. On the one hand, I still feel that my analysis above argues for deletion. Icewhiz (below) found more sources, but I agree with Masem that they don't establish WP:N. On the other hand, working my way out from Screen reader, I see we've got articles on similar programs, namely JAWS, Window-Eyes, and ZoomText. I know WP:OTHERSTUFF is a bad argument, but there is value in uniformity.
I was slowly working my way towards thinking keep, and that's where I was heading with my recent edits. But, we're back to having all the cryptohacking trivia, so maybe just rename this BrowsAloud Cryptojacking incident and move on? Then, at least, the title would match the content. No, I'm not really serious about that.
The real issue here is that there's nothing about this hack that's in specific to this piece of software. Well, there sort of are a few things, but it's more about the the fact that this software is aimed at people with a disability. The audience is small, which means it tends to not get much testing and maintenance. And, since it addresses a specific need, governments which have a mandate to support citizens with disabilities have an incentive to use it. Perhaps with less testing than they might do otherwise. To be fair, I just made most of that up, but I suspect following up on it might lead to an interesting encyclopedia article. But, about this piece of software in particular, I don't see much that can be said beyond, Screen readers are useful, most services these days are delivered via web browsers, so javascript-based screen readers exist, and this is one of them. Beyond that, and the accident that it happened to be one that got hacked, there's nothing special about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs)
A spot check of those three other programs show the same notability issues. JAWS is nearly all sourced to the vendor, with only a link to accessibility standards; the other two have similar non-secondary coverage. They should all be deleted, though a list of recognized (by independent third-party) screenreaders in Screen reader would be reasonable. --Masem (t) 15:34, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
While many of the references to BrowseAloud are passing or brief (paragraph to a few) - it is mentioned as an accessibility option in coverage spanning well over a decade in a great multitude of sources.Icewhiz (talk) 15:47, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete- Seraphimblade has this one exactly right. It's an article about an event, not actually the software, and if it was presented as an article about an event it would not pass WP:NOTNEWS. Reyk YO! 16:54, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. How many bureaucratic discussions are we going to have about the same article when there are ample RS-compliant references? The Guardian, Forbes, etc. establish notability. Remember when we used to write articles here? Gamaliel (talk) 17:00, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The remedy for nonideal prose is not to indiscriminately wield the deletion hammer. It was notable enough in 2010 when it was kept, and the recent press only adds to the notability. In the end the usefulness of Wikipedia is to be of service the global public. BrowseAloud has been in the news. A lot. In a major way. People turn to Wikipedia to find out about it, and if the bias of the above deletionists wins out, then we have failed to serve the sum of all human knowledge to the public. And little by little, Wikipedia becomes less relevant and useful because things heavily in the news and on social media can no longer be found here. We are slowly slipping into Britannica/Nupedia territory. And others will start filling that void. Is that what we want? Remove the offending prose and pare it back to what is relevant. The arguments above in support of deleting rather than fixing are incredibly poor. -- Fuzheado | Talk 17:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding, It was notable enough in 2010 when it was kept, I assume you're referring to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BrowseAloud? Our standards have evolved. That AfD had two arguments for keeping. One consisted of, good or bad, there are sources covering it, with a (currently broken) link to a google search. The other was the single word, Sourced. Given today's standards, that AfD would have been closed as delete in a heartbeat.
I wouldnt read too much into the last AFD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BrowseAloud (2nd nomination) either with one opposed comment from an editor who in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BrowseAloud expressed a commercial connection to sale of alternative software and had vote delete in every nomination and one vote for delete besides the nomination. Gnangarra 18:02, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/BrowseAloud (2nd nomination) was also a crappy discussion. So, let's have a good one here where we examine the sourcing. -- RoySmith (talk) 18:41, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Do we really have to have another DRV when this is thrown in the bin? Suggest the closer disallows this as we've already been there. Szzuk (talk) 17:46, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per Gamaliel & John Cummings I see multiple sources from 2004-2018, from reliable sources . As I stated in the DRV there are additional sources from Africa, US, Europe and New Zealand. Its not one event given the software was given an award in 2004 and involved in a controversy in 2018. Gnangarra 18:15, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete yes there are sources, but that doesn't mean we should have an article on it. All the good sources cover the recent incident where the plugin was hacked, which means this article is essentially a WP:COATRACK for an article about the hack. We can't have an article on the hack because of WP:NOTNEWS. Of the non-hack sources [1] is a dead link, [2] is a local newspaper (in the UK these are generally not reliable), [3] an insignificant award which doesn't count for much, [4] a newsgroup post (useless as a source), [5] some guy's blog. That just leaves [6], an explanation of what it does on the website of an organisation which uses it and [7] which is the site of an company/organisation offering to make your website more accessible. I don't think those are collectively enough to establish notability. Hut 8.5 18:55, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You have taken "WP:NOTNEWS" and interpreted it in a personal way that is inconsistent with our policy. It doesn't say Wikipedia shouldn't contain news. It says that we shouldn't be original reporting or news reporting. Just because something is in the news doesn't disqualify it from being 1) included in an article or 2) used to establish notability. -- Fuzheado | Talk 21:57, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOTNEWS says that we consider the enduring notability of events and that most events in the news do not qualify for inclusion. This hack has no enduring notability, it is unlikely that it will still be covered a few months from now, let alone a few years. The existence of news coverage about the hack therefore does not mean we should have an article on it. Furthermore even if the hack was an appropriate encyclopedic topic then we should have an article about the hack instead of pretending it's an article about a software product. Hut 8.5 22:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. I am persuaded by Hut's argument that if this one incident becomes the defining difference between article and no article, then it is basically a coatrack. Guy (Help!) 21:47, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and salt. No amount of news reporting matters: news reports are primary sources for historical events, as you will learn in your basic college historiography class. Reliable sources for this topic are peer-reviewed secondary publications, neither of which is true of news reports, as we're all well aware of news reports routinely making errors — they're experts in producing something fast, not experts in producing comprehensive, well-researched documentation of something. And salt, given the demonstrated propensity of people to recreate this. Nyttend (talk) 23:18, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per User:RoySmith and User:Hut 8.5. There may be a case for an article on the hijacking, and it may be appropriate for this title to redirect to that article. But none of the sources provided thus far actually talk in depth about this software outside of the context of its being hijacked by malware. Lankiveil (speak to me) 01:57, 21 February 2018 (UTC).[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Disability-related deletion discussions. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:19, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Beyond the recent news reporting (which does not detract from notability, if only adds), this software was notable per continued coverage and reviews over many years - [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Scholar articles are hard to find since you need to filter lots of crud from academic sites that use BrowseAloud which show up. There is also quite a bit of news coverage prior to 2018, including in non-English (e.g. Russian). [22][23][24]. Whether the article should focus on the recent hacking or long-term coverage of this product is a content issue to be had on the page, not via AfD. At the very least recent events and editing have actually alleviated COI concerns which were present in the past - e.g. in the last AfD in 2017 - version as of Nov 2017.Icewhiz (talk) 11:23, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • None of those provide significant coverage in a secondary manner. They identify the plugin as a means of text-to-speech for accessibility, but do not discuss the software further beyond that. So prior to this most recent bit in the news, there still is a lack of secondary sources for the plugin itself. --Masem (t) 14:06, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge relevant content to an article about "cryptomining" The notable issue here is that a popular piece of software was found to be engaging in cryptomining without user's knowledge; it is not the first, it won't be the last. We actually do not have a good article on this (we have "mining" in the cryptocurrency article, but its just a small section. Cryptomining - how it's done, its side effects (video cards prices shot through the roof), and security issues and the like easily have legs as a enduring notable topic. Once that is made, the relevant parts of this software's piece in that can be put in there, as an example of a security-related mining incident. But the software itself has no notability beyond that, so we should not have a standalone on it. --Masem (t) 14:11, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I'm as big a deletionist as anyone but at some point wikipedia shoild cover things that get regilar me tioms in the popular press and specialty publications. Legacypac (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    I just put your comment through google text to speech. It was a completely faithful reproduction, before long BrowseAloud will be just a footnote in history - on wikipedia or not. Szzuk (talk) 21:57, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    There's good reasons to delete this, but surely the fact that better software will eventually replace it isn't one of them. WP:NOTTEMPORARY. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:59, 21 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, I was going off topic contemplating how awesome speech and text recognition software will be in the near future. Szzuk (talk) 00:07, 22 February 2018 (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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