Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/DROsoft

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. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:52, 30 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

DROsoft

DROsoft (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Video game distributor. The coverage (references, external links, etc.) does not seem sufficient to justify this article passing Wikipedia:General notability guideline and the more detailed Wikipedia:Notability (companies) requirement. WP:BEFORE did not reveal any significant English-language coverage on Gnews, Gbooks or Gscholar. No valid redirect target, since Electronic Arts doesn't mention it, and we don't have a list of companies acquired by EA. Also, a REDFLAG - no article on Spanish Wikipedia, if it was a significant company in Spain it would likely have a page there. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:54, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Spain-related deletion discussions. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:54, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So, for a Spanish company, you only looked for English-language sources? The Banner talk 09:17, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - I've found a substantial number of sources and added them to the article, and there seems to be an indication of notability. For what it's worth, by the way, there is a page on eswiki: es:Dro-Soft. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 09:33, 10 July 2020 (UTC) Merge and redirect into Golden age of Spanish software per below. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 14:29, 19 July 2020 (UTC) Keep again; see below. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 08:48, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 15:08, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. Lightburst (talk) 15:08, 13 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete I read the new sources, and none of them constitute significant coverage of the company. Brief, passing descriptions do not suffice for WP:GNG. – FenixFeather ^{(talk)(Contribs)} 23:39, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @FenixFeather: None of them constitute SIGCOV? Both this article and this one on ProQuest are dedicated in their entireties to the company. A significant percentage of the El País article is dedicated to DROsoft, too. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 09:12, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

re: PQ, Business Wire exclusively hosts press releases, so not a reliable source. The pcworld.es source is a press release as well. WP:CORPDEPTH (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 04:24, 17 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Nuh, I didn't see that the pcworld.es article was also a press release - I should have been more careful looking at that. In light of that, I think merging would probably be the best solution; there seems to be enough for a section in Golden age of Spanish software, and there's multiple sources talking about it as part of that that I've seen, but there's probably not enough for an independent article for now. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 14:29, 19 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per the nom and FenixFeather. There are a few sources, but they are either press releases or rehashes of such, wherefore significant coverage in independent, reliable sources that is not run-of-the-mill coverage is missing. I don't think merging this to golden age of Spanish software is appropriate, as none of the sources connect DROsoft to that era, making inclusion original research. IceWelder [✉] 08:24, 23 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @IceWelder: I've added sources to the article linking it to the edad de oro. Would you mind taking a look? Thanks! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 09:30, 23 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Changed to weak keep or alternatively merge to DRO Records; see below. IceWelder [✉] 14:55, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I've changed my vote back to keep, on reflection. With the additional sources, even discounting listings of their games and the press release from above, we have an El País article mentioning them, we have a full Microhobby article on them, we have a number of mentions in the book Ocho quilates, we have Macedonia magazine talking about them, and then we have the Billboard coverage of their EA incorporation. I think that's enough to pass the notability threshold. IceWelder and FenixFeather, I'd appreciate it if you could take a look again yourselves and let me know your thoughts. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 08:48, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  Sorry, but I'm still not convinced of this. Only source #7 can accurately be described as "significant coverage", but if I interpret the source correctly, it only regurgitates an announcement from DRO Soft. It is a passing mention in #1, #2, #3, #4, #8, #10, and #11, rarely mentioned twice by one source. #6, #9, and #12 are all primary sources, and #5 is an unauthored database entry. I still think that WP:SIGCOV is not met and that the article should be deleted. Yet, it might be worth merging relevant elements to the former parent company, DRO Records, which somehow does not make a mention of DRO Soft at the moment. Given the new sourcing, a mention at Golden era of Spanish software would also be justified. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 13:01, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  @IceWelder: There are twenty different mentions of Dro-Soft in all in Ocho Quilates, including talking about its business model as a result of coming out of DRO Records, with a comparison to Topo, another contemporary software house; the history of Dro-Soft itself and its founding; and describing it as "one of the principal distributors" of the golden era. I have to disagree with you that that constitutes a passing mention.

  I don't agree that the Microhobby article can be described as "churnalism", which is the standard at WP:NEWSORG for "regurgitating announcements" - it's talking about an announcement, but isn't repeating the contents verbatim, as far as I can see. That notwithstanding, I've added another source from Microhobby talking about the company and an agreement it had with Dinamic Software; it's a lot shorter than the previous one, but it certainly can't be described as regurgitating a press release, seeing as it was reporting on something before it was even formally announced. That's independent coverage, and it meets the bar of SIGCOV pretty clearly, I think - being given its own separate section on the page, even though it's a small one.

  Macedonia Magazine talks about it as being the only credible competition to ERBE, describes it as an "important distribution house", and then separately covers one of the games that it published. Each of those individual sentences are quite small, that's true, but there's repeated mention of it, and the fact that it talks of it as being of such importance I think is noteworthy. WP:PASSING is an essay; WP:GNG requires that no original research is needed to extract the content, which it clearly isn't. A passing mention each individual may be, but collectively, I think there's a reasonable argument that they are not trivial coverage, which is the standard for GNG (trivial coverage would perhaps be "this exists", not "this exists, and it's the only significant opponent to a major company"). The same argument applies with the El País source - one of the largest newspapers in the country making mention of you as "one of the leading companies in the sector" is pretty significant, and I don't think ought to be written off.

  You're right that a lot of the other mentions are smaller mentions or primary sources, but I think significant mentions in a book, two magazines, and a large newspaper stands up pretty well on its own. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 13:30, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to have been an error on my part. I had no access to Ocho Quilates and, instead of inquiring about its contents, I accidentally slipped it into my "passing mentions" list. This is obviously incorrect and I did not mean to discredit the source, apologies. As for the MicroHobby sources, the former source does not one-to-one repeat what the announcement said, but it appears to mostly just re-report what the company said during a press conference - in the editor's own words and with some commentary. The new one reports on a rumour (reporting by MicroHobby's "sources"). Nonetheless, given the amount of information that appears to be available in the Ocho Quilates source, there might be some potential for an article (albeit a very short one), so I am changking my !vote to weak keep. However, a merge to DRO Records, for which a subsection dedicated to DROsoft would be a healthy expansion, should still be considered. IceWelder [✉] 14:55, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@IceWelder: Thanks - I agree that a merge is definitely still in contention. I figured the Ocho Quilates thing might have just been a mistake - I ended up buying the book off Amazon on my Kindle for all of the £3 it cost to buy it, but obviously people just coming across an AfD can't be expected to do that.

The trouble is finding other editors to comment on it to ascertain whether consensus is in favour of a merge or a keep... we'll see if anyone else sees the AfD. Thanks for helping clean up the article too, by the way Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 14:59, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep DROsoft was an active Spanish game publisher in the 1990s. There are sources talking about the company in old Spanish publications like Micro Hobby and Micromania. Roberth Martinez (talk) 16:21, 28 July 2020 (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.