Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/MikroTik (2nd 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 delete. Despite numerous arguments that sources exist and references to google searches the Keep side have not actually brought specific sources for discussion. The nature of the sourcing has been discussed in detail and its significant that the final 4 votes who all had the benefit of reading the whole discussion and clearly show their own search for sources come down to a firm delete. That's not to say that a sourced article couldn't get written if the sourcing is clarified. On that basis while its a delete, I see no reason to see permission to have another go at this from scratch if someone wants to take this on. Spartaz Humbug! 08:53, 26 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

MikroTik

AfDs for this article:
MikroTik (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Page is pure fancruft - almost all unsourced and what sources are used are SPS and including the fancruft-signatures of a ridiculous list of ELs and picture gallery. Barely passed AFD in 2008 and has not developed since. Would need to be completely rewritten to make an encyclopedic article out of this. Jytdog (talk) 23:56, 10 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Latvia-related deletion discussions. L3X1 (distænt write) 00:28, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Companies-related deletion discussions. L3X1 (distænt write) 00:28, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. L3X1 (distænt write) 00:28, 11 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: It's one of the best known companies in Latvia and it makes millions. Normally articles on clearly notable subjects are improved, not deleted, and at a glance it doesn't really look as bad as to be described as "funcruft" ~~Xil (talk) 23:06, 12 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - This is a rather well known router company whose products are periodically discussed in IT publications. If you think the page needs improved, then improve it, but there's rather a substantial amount of reliable sources out there to draw from. Shelbystripes (talk) 05:34, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Showing up at Afd and making hand-waving claims about "lots of sources" is not a useful argument. Jytdog (talk) 16:55, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I would provide more sources for you, but Offnfopt seems to have already done that below. And also pointed out that your "almost all unsourced" claim was misleading and inaccurate. You can question the quality of the sources, but a less drastic solution is to insert better sources. I also don't understand your complaint below about needing articles based on the company, not its products. It's normal to discuss a company's products on a company's page. Check out the #Products section of Apple Inc for an example. And it's especially relevant when the company name is commonly used to refer to the company's products; I hear/read discussions of "MikroTik routers" periodically. The fact that the company's products get substantial notable coverage makes clear that there's enough notable coverage to have a page dedicated to the company and its products. Shelbystripes (talk) 22:42, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For pete's sake- look at the actual article.

Here, I is will paste it here for you.

;NO SOURCES IN THE SECTION BELOW

RouterOS

The main product of MikroTik is an operating system based on the Linux kernel, known as the MikroTik RouterOS. Installed on the company's proprietary hardware (RouterBOARD series), or on standard x86-based computers, it turns a computer into a network router and implements various additional features, such as firewalling, virtual private network (VPN) service and client,[1] bandwidth shaping and quality of service, wireless access point functions and other commonly used features when interconnecting networks. The system is also able to serve as a captive-portal-based hotspot system.

The operating system is licensed in increasing service levels, each releasing more of the available RouterOS features. A MS Windows application called Winbox provides a graphical user interface for the RouterOS configuration and monitoring, but RouterOS also allows access via FTP, telnet, and secure shell (SSH). An application programming interface is available for direct access from applications for management and monitoring.

NO SOURCES IN THE SECTION BELOW
Features

RouterOS supports many applications used by Internet service providers, for example OSPF, BGP, Multiprotocol Label Switching (VPLS/MPLS), OpenFlow. The product is supported by Mikrotik through a forum and a wiki, providing assorted and thematic examples of configurations. RouterOS supports Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) as well as Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6).

The software provides support for virtually all network interfaces that the Linux kernel 3.3.5 supports, except wireless, where the Atheros chipsets are the only supported hardware, as of RouterOS version 6.33.

ONE SOURCE IN THE SECTION BELOW
Release history
  • RouterOS version 6: May 2013[2]
    • RouterOS version 6.38 (December 30, 2016; 7 years ago (2016-12-30))
  • RouterOS version 5: March 2010
  • RouterOS version 4: October 2009
  • RouterOS version 3: January 2008
ONLY SPAM REFS TO MICROTEK AND ONLY IN THE LAST SENTENCE IN THE SECTION BELOW
RouterBOARD

The company manufactures a series of integrated circuit boards, marketed under the name RouterBOARD, as well as accessory components which implement a complete hardware operating platform for RouterOS.

The RouterBOARD line, combined with RouterOS, is marketed at small- to medium-sized wireless Internet service providers, typically providing broadband wireless access in remote areas. Products include pre-assembled small office/home office (SOHO) routers, wireless 802.11a/b/g/n/ac MIMO and TDMA devices for indoor and outdoor use, and also bare routers in form of printed circuit boards (PCBs) for integration into custom solutions. Also, the RouterBOARD line includes a series of Mini PCI and Mini PCI Express wireless adapters, supporting a range of IEEE 802.11 protocols, and designed to be used together with the router boards lineup.

Some RouterBOARD boards and their versions are supported by third-party Linux-based firmware, notably OpenWrt.[6][7][8][9][10]

ALMOST NOTHING BELOW IS ACTUALLY IN THE REF GIVEN AND THE LAST SENTENCE IS UNSOURCED
Cloud Core Router

In November 2012, MikroTik released the Cloud Core Router integrated unit which is based on the Tilera CPU supporting nine to 72 CPU cores, 8 SFP+ (MiniGBIC) interfaces, as well as "fast-path" packet forwarding between interfaces (with independently tested 119 million packets and 80 Gbit/s forwarding rate[3]). This unit targets the medium-sized network providers as well as try to be a well priced alternative to the other more well-known brands.

PURE FANCRUFT SOURCED ONLY TO MIKOTIK WEBSITE
MikroTik User Meeting (MUM)

The MUM is a conference and exhibition about networking, more targeted at MikroTik device users. Started as a regular gathering of forum users in January 2006, the events are now taking place every few weeks around the world, gathering hundreds of people at every event. The biggest event As of November 2015 was in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, gathering 2650 people.[4]

THE KEY LAST SENTENCE UNSOURCED; ENTIRELY PROMOTIONAL, "ARGUING" WITH THE SOURCED CONTENT
Vulnerabilities

On June 15, 2015, Brian Krebs, an online reporter, reported that "recently, researchers at the Fujitsu Security Operations Center in Warrington, UK began tracking [the] Upatre [trojan software] being served from hundreds of compromised home routers – particularly routers powered by MikroTik and Ubiquiti’s AirOS." A vulnerability hasn't been linked with this incident and Bryan Campbell, the lead threat intelligence analyst at Fujitsu says while a vulnerability could exist, this could also be the result of unsecured devices that still have default credentials enabled.[5][additional citation(s) needed]

References

  1. ^ "Setup secure VPN access between client and server".
  2. ^ MikroTik RouterOS: What's new in 6.0 (2013-May-17 14:04) Archived 13 May 2013 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "Stubarea Blog". Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  4. ^ "MUM webpage". MikroTik. 2015. Archived from the original on 1 November 2015. Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  5. ^ "Crooks Use Hacked Routers to Aid Cyberheists".

Now... what was that about "the content is sourced" again? People talking here are not dealing with the actual article nor Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. "Unsourced" means that there is no reference - no citation provided, that the content is actually summarizing. The content here is just fancruft added by fans based on what they know about the company and its products. That is all it is. -- Jytdog (talk) 23:36, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Two things. (1) People here are talking about this page in the context of an AfD. The criteria for an AfD is not whether the article currently has adequate sources, but whether the subject is notable and reliable sources exist. If you have problems with the content, or feel that it's too promotional, then edit it and improve the sources. (2) Please stop being so patronizing and insulting toward other editors. I know Wikipedia's guidelines, and the criteria for deletion, and the fact that a page is currently badly written or poorly sourced is not sufficient reason to delete it. That's especially true when (as noted below) another editor committed in the recent edit history to improving the page. Shelbystripes (talk) 00:39, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One thing. Nobody has actually demonstrated that there are sufficient independent reliable sources with significant discussion of this company. That is the only thing that matters. Jytdog (talk) 02:47, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment  The edit history shows a different picture than indicated by the nomination, and shows that the nomination is a reaction to an edit comment made earlier on the same day stating, "revert again, same reasoning, company's main product is routerboard and routerOS and previous edits completely blank out all mention of that. Editor doesn't see[m] familiar with Mikrotik, I've been using them 13 years, I'll work on adding refs".  Recent previous edit history shows a content dispute, but when it was time for the nominator to use inline cn tags or section-ref-needed tags or take the dispute to the talk page, a continuation of reverts rationalized by allegations of edit warring ensued.
    The nomination claims that the 2008 AfD "barely passed", but the raw !vote count was 5 to 2.
    The nomination claims that the article "has not developed since" the 2008 AfD.  But a casual glance shows close to 400 edits.  Year-by-year counts I came up with:
2017 42 edits
2016 26 edits
2015 81 edits
2014 32 edits
2013 28 edits
2012 53 edits
2011 35 edits
2010 21 edits
2009 23 edits
The nomination claims that the article is "almost all unsourced", but there are 22 references and 8 external links.  Two are marked permanent dead link, and one is stated to being a master's thesis, and there are some bot edits on the talk page about recovering edits.  As well, a bot got tangled up in the recent repeated reverts.  But collectively, I don't see that this is evidence of an argument for deletion.  Unscintillating (talk) 15:15, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
When I say "almost all unsourced" i mean exactly what those words say. Look at the article. Large swaths of unsourced content. Where there are "sources" they are the product website or crappy blogs. The lack of good faith much less competence in that "analysis" is actually shocking.
As to the "sources' they are exactly as follows

And don't forget the ridiculous laundry list of spammy ELs.

External links
This is not a Wikipedia article, but rather something awful in that sordid space between fancruft and spam. Jytdog (talk) 16:54, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment To get this out of the way, I'm the editor that Unscintillating made reference to. I'm the one that said "I'll work on adding refs", though my work schedule has been busy so I haven't had the time (just got home from a 12 hour shift). To reply to the above note by Jytdog. Company websites and press releases and technical documents have long been used for references as long as the information being used is not a opinion piece and the information is used to not give favor to that company i.e. the information used is neutral. As a example, lets say Coca-cola issues a online press release and say they're changing the formula to coke and they release another online document that says the new ingredients. We can use both the press release and the document with the ingredients as a reference. We don't have to wait for the New York Times, though in reality they would just be republishing the original information published by Coca-cola with some added flurish. With a lot of technology articles you'll find primary sources are sometimes the only source when it comes to technical reference. Not many news papers or others will publish a article talking about the technical features of Mikrotik's routerOS or as another example the technical details of a file format. This is because most people don't know how the internet works and know nothing of networking protocols. Same goes for file formats, regular people don't know about how to make a software library or program to parse a file, so you would be hard pressed to find a mainstream reference. So for notability, there are plenty of 3rd party results of Mikrotik. 13,000,000 results on google for Mikrotik. 65,200 additional results for the company name in Latvia (i.e. Mikrotīkls). 1,370,000 results for RouterOS, 1,830,000 results for routerboard. You can also find mention of Mikrotik and RouterOS from Ciscopress which is by the publishing company Pearson. You can also find Mikrotik being talking about in a book published by Syngress (i.e. Elsevier). You can also find information on non-English sites about Mikrotik though you need to use the non-english spelling when searching and depending on which language you may need to change the spelling since Mikrotik is used all over the world. A press release from Tilera talking about Mikrotik. You can also find a lot of articles talking about Mikrotik in Dienas Bizness, a long standing Latvian business newspaper. Financial information can be referenced from the Latvia State Enterprise register. If you search for Mikrotīkls 5G, you'll find plenty of news sites talking about Mikrotik and Latavia's oldest mobile provider LMT working together to bring 5G to Latvia. My point being that your comment above that said Quote: hand-waving claims about "lots of sources" is not a useful argument /End quote, there are sources though even though there are sources to talk about the company itself, as I said above, there is nothing wrong with using information provided by a company if it is used properly. I only list this information because you seem to imply with your various comments that the company isn't notable by making reference to the previous deletion request, which was solely for the reason of notability, then you try to claim made up words like "fancruft" as a reasoning for deletion. I still plan on adding references, when I get more time. I'm actually taking away from my limited sleep time just to type this reply. - Offnfopt(talk) 20:27, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Per above, company is notable, fancruft is a made up word and the page on Wikipedia it is used on is a essay and not "Wikipedia policies or guidelines". That essay talks about a subjects notability. After reading that.. essay.. it can be summed up that some individuals seem to think that because they haven't heard of a subject/company/individual it means a subject is not notable. The world is a big place and there are a lot of people and a lot going on that you may not be aware of. Just because you, yourself are not familiar with a subject does not mean it should be deleted from Wikipedia. - Offnfopt(talk) 20:27, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, please read WP:42 - I will copy the nutshell here for you:
Articles generally require significant coverage
in reliable sources
that are independent of the topic.
Press releases are not independent. Technical manuals and the company website are not independent. Blogs are not reliable, generally. What are the refs we need per WP:42? Jytdog (talk) 20:41, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
WP:N is a guideline (not an essay) that explains how the community implements the policy, WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE. (for the interaction between policies and guidelines, see WP:PAG)
Our general approach is that there needs to be at least three independent sources with significant discussion of the subject. What are those three refs? What is happening in this AfD is that instead of anybody !voting "keep" discussing GNG, they are waving their hands and saying "this is important". This is what happens in WP when there is online community of "fans" who do not care sbout Wikipedia's mission or its policies and guidelines, and show up to protect the fanpage they have created in WP. This happens sometimes - it is something WP is vulnerable to, as an open, volunteer project. Jytdog (talk) 20:36, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Jytdog please take the time to read my comment above fully. Your question of "What are those three refs?" shows you did not. As I said above, this it taking away from my limited sleep so this will have to wait till another day. Read my above comment and you'll find your "three refs". The world does not only speak English, even though I listed English sources, I also listed non-English sources and how to find more. - Offnfopt(talk) 20:46, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I did read - you provided too much to read with bad arguments "lots of google hits" but i read the whole thing anyway. What we need are refs with substantial discussion of the company. Discussion of its products is not relevant (notability is not inherited. So the Mikrotik and RouterOS from Ciscopress piece, which is about its product, is not helpful. I ask you again to actually engage with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and just present three independent, reliable sources with substantial discussion of the company. Not stuff with passing mentions. Not "google hits". Jytdog (talk) 22:25, 16 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Just like the "fancruft" essay you referenced, that "NOTINHERITED" page has a key notice at the top of the page "This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines". I've come to the conclusion there is no point in interacting with a individual like you. I've provided the information I wanted for others to see. - Offnfopt(talk) 14:50, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep  The nomination, although it doesn't identify a deletion policy WP:DEL-REASON, appears to be a WP:DEL7 nomination.  Regarding the WP:DEL7 nomination, I have identified and removed a social media website from the external links, added one Template:Unreferenced section, and added one Template:Citation needed.  I also clicked on Google scholar and see foreign language references.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:32, 17 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Are the references provided enough to establish notability?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 02:24, 18 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Look at WP:CORP - if there are sources out there matching the four main criteria can be easily tested by doing Google News search, which shows plenty of non-trivial, independent coverage in major national and also foreign media that certainly isn't about anything criminal. The article itself doesn't appear to be promotional or fan made - it uses neutral language and lists vulnerablities of their products. Including product descriptions, when article isn't severly overflooded with them, shouldn't really be a problem and it isn't advertising. It would be great, if there was a bit more content on other issues, but article lacking detail is not a reason to delete it. Nor is one user arguing that WP:ITSCRUFT ~~Xil (talk) 14:39, 19 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete -- a promotional article for a barely notable brand. Fails WP:CORPDEPTH. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:28, 21 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: This is a well-known brand of small installation/WISP network equipment and has been for a very long time. Try putting at least a token effort into finding sources instead of proposing the whole thing be scrapped and people's effort thrown away because you don't feel like doing it yourself. As an AfD, the "non-notable" argument is patently invalid if one puts in the minimum effort of typing "mikrotic" into Google News and taking a cursory look at the numerous secondary sources present there. atomicthumbs‽ (talk) 01:22, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
typing "mikrotic" into Google News and taking a cursory look at the numerous secondary sources present there is an invalid argument at AfD. The requirement is very simple - a few actual RS with actual substantial discussion of the actual subject. Not handwaves. Jytdog (talk) 01:58, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
As I pointed out above google news show plenty of exactly the kind of sources notability guidelines require. And all the guidelines require is proof that there are sources out there. An argument is not invalid just because it doesn't suit someone's agenda. ~~Xil (talk) 06:30, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You actually have to show them. All that "there are lots of google hits" says, is that there are lots of mentions, and google catches all kinds of crap along with reliable sources. Continually repeating "lots of google hits" just shows how bad the advocacy is and how little any of the Keep voters understands, or even cares about, the policies and guidelines of WP. Jytdog (talk) 06:33, 22 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
These are not ordinary Google hits, but results from media sites. And even if somewhere deep down there is "crap" it's plainly obvious that top results are major national media writing about the company in particular. Also a person who nominates "cruft" for deletion "vote" really shouldn't lecture others on policies and guidelines ~~Xil (talk) 19:02, 22 December 2017 (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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