Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Date windowing

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 Keep - article length is quite short, and so merger/redirection to Year 2000 problem may be appropriate, if editors of the page form such a consensus. Not really discussed here. Wily D 08:11, 24 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Date windowing

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Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. Cliff Smith 17:46, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Non notable concept, no external reliable sources indicate its notability. Shadowjams (talk) 13:42, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 20:32, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Shows no evidence of notability, plus it's unsorurced. Electriccatfish2 (talk) 23:14, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep There is actually a source. Look at the page why don't you? Also, I believe due diligence is not being done here. My response (to the hastily added speedy deletion tag) on the talk page is left unresponded to. Its neither proper nor polite to ignore my response and instead file an AFD. I don't appreciate this in the least bit. Why not spend 30 seconds talking to me so we can figure out where we disagree. Fresheneesz (talk) 04:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note that I'm going to keep my argument for the article's notability where I left it, on the article's talk page. Fresheneesz (talk) 04:53, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep It is a well known technique for handling two digit dates. It became notable as a solution to the Y2K problem and windowing is mentioned at Year 2000 problem. The article is new and needs a lot of work, but it shouldn't be difficult to find sources. There is scope for expanding the article, for example, here is a variant of the technique that uses a sliding window (sliding window). CodeTheorist (talk) 18:00, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The only context where there's any mention of it I found is provided in that Y2K article. It's a trivial subset of the Y2K issue at best, and it's already covered there. Perhaps you could describe it as a premature fork, but with the same conclusion. Shadowjams (talk) 21:31, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A merge is not the "same conclusion" as a delete, Shadow Fresheneesz (talk) 00:17, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Merge should be considered WP:BEFORE nomination, not during. Please do the required work before nominating something. --Kvng (talk) 14:07, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I never argued for a merge. You both misunderstand. I'm saying it's a trivial fork of the Y2K article. There's nothing to merge because the information is already in the fork. And saying this is a BEFORE issue is ridiculous. Even if it was a merge suggestion, merge is a perfectly valid conclusion at AfD. I'm not sure how you think BEFORE somehow excludes that possibility. But again, merge was never the argument. Perhaps you should take a look at WP:REDUNDANTFORK. Shadowjams (talk) 18:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That is the problem right there Shadow. Merges, redirects, and article improvements should be considered *before* marking something for deletion. A merge is only a valid conclusion of an AfD when the AfD was created improperly in the first place (as it was here). Fresheneesz (talk) 21:15, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Date windowing is a very widely used technique. It was used extensively to address the Y2K problem, and is still being used in newly developed software. I believe date windowing will become even more notable when all those Y2K "fixes" hit the end of their date windows. Let this article live and develop. Mr Barndoor 13:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr Barndoor (talk • contribs)

Keep see Year_2000_problem#Programming_solutions. --Kvng (talk) 14:07, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's kind of my argument for deletion... it's an unnecessary content fork on a trivial subset of a topic that's already amply covered there. Shadowjams (talk) 18:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for being terse. There's a reliable source there citing the topic. That was one of your complaints in nominating this for AfD. If you believe this topic is adequately covered in Year_2000_problem you should have suggested a merge WP:BEFORE nominating here. --Kvng (talk) 13:33, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep We see date windowing used all the time in everyday life here in the U.S. at least. Many governmental sites still rely on it. The article needs a lot of work, but removing it is not the right answer—expanding it is. In particular, I'd like to see it cover problems that occur with date windowing in more detail. Abhayakara (talk) 23:06, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Aside from the unsourced claims above about its relevance, here are a few common searches for the term, and their utter lack of notability: 1) Google book search for "date window" computer science, entire first page reveals nothing related to this topic, rather the more colloquial use of the term to describe a time-frame around a certain date, like in law or anthropology. 2) Book search for "date windowing". This is the most fruitful search. There's actually a published book reference to it, and it's mentioned in government reports. Notably though, every hit on the first page is related to Y2K. The book hits may look notable, but keep in mind in both instances there is 1 paragraph dedicated to it in books designed specifically around debugging software systems. That is, 1 paragraph in a 400 page book, and 1 subsection of a chapter in the other. The rest of the mentions are all related to Y2K issues. Simple programming workarounds used sparingly in code (as opposed to fundamental structures, like loops and control statements) are not notable enough for their own article unless there's sufficient nontrivial mentions. Moreover, it's amply covered in the Y2K article. I'm befuddled at most of the responses above since there's little non trivial reliable sources. Shadowjams (talk) 18:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Even if your assessment is true, that it isn't notable enough to have its own article, the information is clearly good for an encyclopedia and it is cited. A deletion is inappropriate. Fresheneesz (talk) 21:17, 22 July 2012 (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.