Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Windows Media Encoder

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. There are a number of sources provided by a number of editors to indicate the meeting of significant coverage requirements, according to consensus. (non-admin closure) TBr and ley ^{(what's up)} 01:26, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Windows Media Encoder

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Hi. This article is not notable as it does not supply evidence significant coverage in reliable secondary sources. Looks like a discontinued piece of Microsoft software that never took off. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 16:14, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. ★☆ DUCKISPEANUTBUTTER☆★ 03:10, 24 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Is notable:

as Microsoft software that was available and current at one time; still available for download;
Microsoft still makes patches available;
used by a significant number of users. See Google search for "Windows Media Encoder", about a million hits (first few pages are artificially promoted download sites, but plenty of users), plenty in last year. Random things by users: [1][2][3].

May need more text asserting notability - that could be discussed in article's Talk page - but shouldn't be deleted.

Pol098 (talk) 17:05, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. First and foremost, please stick to standard message formatting, so that others can contribute without disruption. As for the article, please see WP:GNG and WP:Search engine test. Your evidences are not valid to establish notability. To begin with relation to Microsoft does not automatically bring notability. Also, YouTube and GitHub are not even acceptable sources. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 07:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: The article definitely needs to be improved, but significant coverage in reliable secondary sources does exist and thus the article has potential. A Google Books search returned multiple results that appear reliable, including a review published in PC Magazine. I would also note that this software appears to have been more popular about a decade ago than it is currently, so recommended places to look for additional sources with significant coverage are computer magazines and books from the late 90s / early 2000s. --Mike Agricola (talk) 18:15, 22 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. This is called "passing coverage". Per WP:GNG, we need significant coverage. Please find sources that can actually be used in the article to verify its contents (although I know that you cannot; I tried.) Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 07:26, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The review linked by Mike is most certainly significant, not passing, coverage, as are many of the first few dozen of those Google Books results. Please don't imagine that your failure to find usable sources means that nobody else will be capable of doing so. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:28, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I looked a bit further afield and found three additional sources which I consider to contain reliable, significant, independent, coverage. In my estimation, further investigation could uncover yet more sources:

(1) PC Magazine (November 7, 2000): An entire review discussing Windows Media Encoder 7.

(2) Tech Review: What's New in Windows Media Encoder 7 was published in Streaming Media. The site's "About" appear to indicate that it's a mainstream online media outlet. WP:RSFS states that online media articles are "generally accepted as a reliable source of software-related information."

(3) Hands-On Guide to Windows Media (CRC Press): Chapter 6 is entitled "Encoding for Windows Media". Based upon the Google Books preview, it appears largely dedicated to a discussion of Windows Media Encoder. --Mike Agricola (talk) 19:20, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi.

I hope I did not make you uncomfortable with my replies. In a last AfD, I nominated an article for GNG, everyone came and said "Keep" and I said nothing (I thought "okay, if community has consensus...") until people started taking potshots at me in addition to saying "Keep". So, I thought I'd better get a little more verbal. So, I just say this once: In my humble opinion, this amount of coverage for a Microsoft product is not enough. And now, I will be silent and let community decide. If it is kept in the end, it is excellent.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 07:35, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Before I choose my verdict, I would like to see whether anyone considers [4] and [5] confer notability. Although according to the Google search this has been covered pretty widely in the past, many of the references are quickly dying, and already the ZDNet results are dead.--Jasper Deng (talk) 00:34, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

[4] is a reliable source with significant coverage; InformIT is owned by Pearson, an academic and educational publisher (and is independent of Microsoft). I'm not sure about [5] though as it's more of a "how to" guide and I'm not very familiar with broadcastnewsroom.com. I came across some additional sources including a review published by ZDNet Belgium (in Dutch). Jon Udell's columns in InfoWorld have also repeatedly discussed it (e.g. here, here, and here).

It may also be worth mentioning that "notability is not temporary; once a topic has been the subject of 'significant coverage' in accordance with the general notability guideline, it does not need to have ongoing coverage" (WP:N#TEMP). I've also participated in some video-game related AfDs where consensus held that significant coverage in twenty year old printed magazines satisfied WP:GNG even though the games in question received very little current attention in reliable media sources. Admittedly this is my first time participating in a (non video-game) software AfD, but it does seem to me that WP:NSOFT inclusion criterion #1 ("discussed in reliable sources as significant in its particular field") is met. --Mike Agricola (talk) 15:05, 27 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I'm convinced of notability by sources found in books, including several such as The Technology of Video and Audio Streaming that are not MS-specific. And it has been a component over several server iterations. It may well be on the way out, but I think the implicit idea that it has to be current is a red herring. Even if it were discontinued tomorrow, I would say it meets the notability threshold. Whether there is enough to say about it however is a different matter. I could perhaps support a merge, maybe to Windows Media Services. Mcewan (talk) 17:46, 27 January 2013 (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.