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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 keep. With all due respect to many of the deleters, spam issues are important but not by themselves a reason for deletion. The validity of at least some of the reviews is not in question (and isn't seriously questioned here), so keep it must be, with the hope that voters here will continue to keep an eye on this and associated articles. Drmies (talk) 15:45, 16 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

StarWind Software[edit]

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

Article fails WP:NOTABILITY. Article was created by an WP:SPA advertising-only account (Runa zor (talk · contribs),213.238.8.10 (talk · contribs · WHOIS)) with no other edits other than related to StarWind Software. Was speedied once under WP:CSD#G11 as Blatant advertising and once in a previous AFD.

Self-promotion and product placement are not the routes to having an encyclopaedia article. Hu12 (talk) 15:30, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions.
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 15:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I'm not familiar with this product but I had no trouble finding references using Google books, e.g., [1], [2] and [3]. Many more where those came from. The article may indeed be too commercial, the work of an WP:SPA and lacking citations to reliable sources. But those are content issues; here at AfD, our only concern is notability: It's not whether the sources have been cited, it's whether they exist. It appears they do. Msnicki (talk) 18:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Additional Comment - Are people just blatantly ignoring the cites or something when they make a !vote for delete? There are numerous reliable third party sources here. They're not some company ran out of a kid's garage, they're headquartered along the 128 Corridor in Burlington, MA along with hundreds of other companies. Companies don't have to be Google or Microsoft in order to warrant having an article here. --NINTENDUDE64 04:59, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Delete + Salt – The company is no more notable than any of a hundred other small concerns, and seems to have people associated with it that consider WP a good advertising medium. If you remove Wikipedia, their parent company, their executives/owners, LinkedIn and their resellers/agents, the list of Google results dwindles substantially. Heck, I work in the business and I've never heard of them. (Update: !Vote changed because I was unfamiliar with the article's history (multiple deletes and re-creates). In some quarters, Wikipedia is considered a valid marketing outlet, and I have little patience with that philosophy.) — UncleBubba ( T @ C ) 00:47, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your feedback. Especially negative one. Two things so far: 1) Page is updated with TONS of links. Including hard copy books. 2) History is BAD. But @ the same time can you judge on CURRENT state of the things? Not all people are smart enough to control their staff members. Would you kill for anything added again and again only b/c of bad history in the past? Any chance to pass this "correctional facility"? Thank you! AK47 213.238.8.10 (talk) 01:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Although there have been the POV and COI issues as well as the previous AfD, I think this article is not as spammy as before and it does have a lot of references to demonstrate notability. Change to Delete per comments re spam and coi issues and references are not independent.Vrenator talk 09:18, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. - While some links have been added, a closer look reveals they all fail as reliable sources and seem to be nothing more than a collection of press releases, blogs, partner sites, self published material and mere trivial coverage and incidental mentions. For example; 5 of the links are to affiliate sales links on www.amazon.de/com/.co.uk and even the zdnet.com Blogger (Dan Kusnetzky) explains explicitly in his BLOG that a "representative of StarWind Software reached out to me... "[4] as a "marketing message "[5], Pure marketing, not reliable sources.
Note; While very little evidence of Notability exists, a large amount of Multi-language wikipedia abuse, Spamming, Conflicts of interest and Advertising Does exist;
Article Spamming (including the two on ru.wikipedia.org)
StarWind Software (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
  • 19:06, 25 August 2009 deleted "StarWind Software" ‎ (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/StarWind Software)
  • 13:01, 16 March 2009 deleted "StarWind Software" ‎ (G11: Blatant advertising)
Starwind (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
  • 00:18, 17 August 2010 deleted "Starwind" ‎ (A3: Article that has no meaningful, substantive content)
  • 19:37, 2 July 2009 deleted "Starwind" ‎ (A7: Article about a company, corporation, organization, or group, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject)
  • 21:36, 23 March 2008 deleted "Starwind"
ru:StarWind Software Inc.
ru:StarWind Software
Notability has not been demonstrated and the sources clearly fail to support inclusion. It is clear that StarWind Software Inc. contunues its attempts to exploit wikipedia for their own marketing and advertising purposes. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia - Content that does not belong in an encyclopedia is excluded. Wikipedia is NOT a "vehicle for advertising" . Equally Wikipedia is not a place for StarWind Software to promote their products.--Hu12 (talk) 17:41, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
+1 on that. The user in question has stated that they simply wanted to make it a convenient source of information for their customers (on my talk page: User talk:Download/Archives/2011/December#StarWind Software Page), but that does not resolve the problems of COI and notability whatsoever. -download ׀ talk 18:13, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Earlier, I gave three sources that popped out at me when I searched Google books. I'm not familiar with this product, but the sources appeared to be reliable and independent. It looked to me like there were plenty more, satisfying WP:GNG. What was wrong with those sources, in your opinion?
Also, you appear to be arguing for deletion based on who wrote it, that it was an WP:SPA. But on WP, most of us are anonymous and it's irrelevant who contributed the content; it matters only that the topic is notable and that the claims can be verified with reliable sources. We decide notability at AfD, but if notability is satisfied, we work out content disputes on the article talk page. Do you disagree that the issue here is notability, not content? Msnicki (talk) 18:20, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunatly, each of those you cited are merely incidental and insignificant installation mentions, perhaps at most, trivial. Nothing there to significantly establish notability nor lend support to the subjects notability.--Hu12 (talk) 19:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Each one appeared to be at least a couple pages in length. I don't know anything about this product, but I think I know something about the hurdle at most AfDs, which is that we typically accept far less. More to the point, brushing off these sources as incidental without explaining why you feel that way isn't very helpful. You're not offering much reason why I should change my opinion, which, based on what I've seen so far, is that you're wrong. Msnicki (talk) 20:19, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Insignificant mentions about installation in self published, Non-Notable books, does not Notability make. "Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability." The explaination is clearly stated in the second sentence of the notability guidelines[6]. Additionaly, "Significant coverage is more than a trivial mention..."[7]. Lastly, "The depth of coverage of the subject by the source must be considered."[8] Equally, by virtue of just having incidental search results in google books, does not inherantly mean the subject is notable.--Hu12 (talk) 21:33, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So which are they? Are they trivial or primary? You don't seem sure. Mostly you seem to be arguing by repeated assertion that the sources are trivial (or primary, which is it?) and therefore, notability is not established. Yes, okay, I understand the guidelines, that notability requires significant coverage in reliable independent sources. But we disagree about whether these particular sources are trivial or primary and you haven't given me a reason why I should change my opinion about them. Even if they are talking how to install the thing, I call that taking notice. I'm convinced these sources would pass muster in most AfDs. To get me onboard, you need to tell more about what's wrong the sources, not just cite what part of the guidelines would apply if I agreed with your complaints (or even knew what they were.) Msnicki (talk) 23:00, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, let's go step-by-step...

1) Link to what you say is a "sales page" is a link on AMAZON to a an INDEPENDENT BOOK referencing StarWind and having it as a cover. Just wanted to show book is alive and still available for purchase. Can replace all the links with a links to author's pages (as did with Chris Wolf one). But the problem is not in links but it's somewhere else from what I understand?

2) Second ZDNet URL points to second part of of Mr. Kuznetsky review after he was contacted by CEO (that's all from public sources) to re-check some of the results he (Kuznetsky) got on his first review. That's not a PR. It's just an attempt to show the truth to everybody. Pretty much what we do here.

3) Books are not notable... Dear Hu12 are you a virtualization expert and Windows administrator to judge are they valuable or not? Did you read them all (including ones in German) in 12 hours?

People who write them are respected and trusted and here's a review for "The Complete Guide to Windows Server 2008" Mr. Mark Russinovich (Google a bit who's this guy) gave:

“This book is an invaluable one-stop reference for deploying, configuring, and managing Windows Server 2008. It’s filled with John’s unique and hard-earned nuggets of advice, helpful scripts, and shortcuts that will save you time and money.”

4) Wiki is not a place for product placement... Sure. That's why there are no products.

5) Bad history. OK. Are we talking about current page and it's status or what was before? If you keep deleting something you create bad history. You cannot put any IP writing something about StarWind into StarWind ban page. Trace back some IPs you've added to find whom they belong to.

AK47

PS Hope I'll find some time to create a permanent account. Did not think it's going to get THAT far.

213.238.8.5 (talk) 22:26, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, now I have an account. Let's clap our hands :) Just in case it's me, ex-AK47.

APS (Full Auto) (talk) 22:46, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. APS, with respect to citing books, they usually are not linked to anything. We don't link to Amazon, publisher sites, author sites, etc. All a book citation requires is author, title, publisher, year, and ISBN. Hu12, books don't have to be notable to be cited; however, you are correct that they may not be self-published and also that the coverage cannot be just a mere mention, say in a list of other products. However, even a couple paragraph description may be used to help establish notability: a few paragraphs or pages in enough independent reliable third-party secondary sources establishes notability as well as two very in-depth ones. I have not looked into the sources in this particular case and have no opinion as to whether or not this company is notable. Yworo (talk) 15:18, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, it's no problem to replace the links with quotes and ISBNs. APS (Full Auto) (talk) 16:32, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: was pinged on my talk page about this, so assuming good faith I've taken another look at the references currently in the article. Examining all the links, there's one that stands out as (a) clear in-depth coverage of the subjects at hand (i.e. the company or software) and (b) not obviously linked to the marketing actions of the company, [9]. Alas, that link appears to be from a reseller of the company, thus failing independence criteria. It is worth noting that articles that start A representative of StarWind Software reached out... and their follow-up articles cannot be regarded as independent, nor can articles where the product is mainly discussed in the comments, by a user with the same name as a company principal. There are many books referenced, but I can find no indication that the company or product is mentioned except in passing. As a result of this and a review of the history of the page I'm changing my vote to: Delete as lacking in-depth coverage in reliable, independent third-party sources and Salt for apparent attempts at astroturfing. Stuartyeates (talk) 21:09, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1) It's no problem to remove that one just if you don't like it )) There are many more in Google waiting to be added... What I just cannot get is - what kind of links are accepted as "notable" as you guys and girls keep saying bad things but no single one was capable to provide any example of GOOD one. Are blogs OK? Fine, I'll get some bloggers on board.

2) It takes 5 minutes to Google who "Storage Switzerland" are. They are not reseller of anybody they are independent reviewers / consulters. Calling them SW resellers brings you into trouble as you need to prove what you're saying. Can you point to a place where it's told? Logo? Pricelist? Internal memorandum? ANYTHING?

3) User:Msnicki had already told you how to to use Google books to find a quotes. And was kind enough to provide 3 links to the pages. So if you've failed to do something it means you've FAILED. It does not mean issue you've been working on is unbreakable. Try again. And again. One day you'll have success. Probably. If you need my help here I'll be ready to assist.

APS (Full Auto) (talk) 22:55, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, second ZDNet link is gone. SS link is gone. 4 new liks to independent reviews. Are they OK?

APS (Full Auto) (talk) 23:15, 10 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One of those links is behind a paywall for me but coverage of starwind in the [10] article is limited to the sentence I don’t have to purchase iSCSI mass storage since I can use Starwind to create iSCSI targets to connect my systems to. This does not amount to a review, in my eyes. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:25, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could be true. OK, I'll remove this particular one. Any other ones you don't like (and reasons)? APS (Full Auto) (talk) 21:53, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which link exactly? I've take them from SW "links" page and all had opened fine for me. Don't remember paying anything to anybody. OK, I can remove that one no problem. Had added a couple of new ones (one is in Russian but you can use Google translate and screenshots are in English in any case) so if you (I mean ALL) think they worth being mentioned I can proceed with the other ones. Oh, also renamed section to the one probably is closer to the real name. Thank you for cooperation!

APS (Full Auto) (talk) 14:57, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While more links have been added, they all fail as reliable sources and seem to be nothing more than a collection of press releases, blogs, partner sites, self published material and mere trivial coverage and incidental mentions; ZDNet Blogger (Dan Kusnetzky) explains explicitly in his BLOG that a "representative of StarWind Software reached out to me... "[11] as a "marketing message "[12], Pure marketing, not independent of the subject nor it is a review. the crn.com link contains a brief quote from StarWind's CEO, marketing the product whithin a slide-show list of similar vendor products. it-bezpeka.org.ua, techrepublic.com, techtarget.com links are simply inclusions in various blogged lists of related products and is considered "trivial coverage'[13]. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject is not sufficient to establish notability.--Hu12 (talk) 00:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Link you've been talking about was REMOVED. Also you may be far away from technology (and that's fine) but you should have at least common sense of wisdom to complete the reading (as there are few pages) to find out it was SECOND part of review and he was indeed contacted after he had completed FIRST one himself. He ran first one to verify marketing message compnany claimed. And company failed from his poit of view. This IS an independent, reliable and notable source. You told "press release" and "self published". Now please go and point which referenced links are PR and if something is self published also please point to them. It's easy to contact their authors and / or verify whom are they been working for @ the time they had shoot that review. CRN link is about giving industry award so it's NORMAL when people are telling something on nomination or when taking prize. You cannot discard URL only b/c company CEO was quoted saying "thanks guys!" taking some kind of Product of the Year teapot or whatever they had won. "Similar vendor products" - no they are not. Hu12 you need to be with a technology to judge on what's similar or not. Please do not do any wrong assertions being easy to verify as more and more you do less and less reliable you look. IT-bezpeka is about building a cluster on top of StarWind so it's NOT a trivial coverage. Google is your friend here with it's translation. Bother yourself finally to read two pages of what you're skipping to read. It's a core technology. Putting products face-to-face to compare them has been always treated as a reliable way to compare the things. What you say basically is "TopGear article about M3 put face-to-face with C63AMG costs nothing as it's pure marketing and is trivial coverage". Nice. What next? Also at least I'm still waiting for your feedback about how you judge on books you did not read and have no clue what they are about and what SHOULD be considered as an independent and notable URL. Thank you for contribution. --APS (Full Auto) (talk) 10:42, 13 December 2011 (UTC)— Preceding unsigned comment added by APS (Full Auto) (talk • contribs) 09:46, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This article has been recreated and deleted 6 times already including a previous AFD by multiple WP:SPA advertising-only accounts. You, yourself have created an additional 2 accounts (Runa zor (talk · contribs), APS (Full Auto) (talk · contribs)) for the sole and primary purpose of promoting StarWind Software and have used multiple account related IP's(213.238.8.10 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),213.238.8.5 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),46.211.183.244 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),46.211.183.232 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),46.211.183.201 (talk · contribs · WHOIS),46.211.183.197 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) more above) all in apparent violation of Conflict of interest or anti-spam guidelines. There is nothing wrong with questioning the reliability of sources you have added, considering the overwhelming community consensus that StarWind Software is non-notable. If your sources are'nt sufficient, bring better sources. No editor should ever be expected to do "homework" for another editor. Wikipedia policy is quite clear here: the responsibility for justifying inclusion of any content rests firmly and entirely with the editor seeking to include it. An unreliable souce does not become reliable by virtue of repeating that it is.--Hu12 (talk) 16:05, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  1. . So what? If job was not done properly 6 times I think it's time to have it done in the right way on 7th. Or your official position is - something being deleted 6 times should be never discussed ever?
  1. . Ruma is not my account and other IPs do belong to me. I've been talking to people always signing with the "AK47" name never hiding me is me. So it's not what you want people to think. Trivial to check.
  1. . There's no conflict of interest as I'm not employed or affilated with the company.
  1. . You've failed many times to describe why whey are not sufficient. You're just rejecting everything bringing up any possible reason. This is neither constructive nor acceptable.
  1. . I'll re-work the article as product-oriented and as Msnicki adviced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by APS (Full Auto) (talk • contribs) 22:09, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're making an argument to avoid, Hu12. WP:BURDEN refers to content, not topics: If a statement in an article isn't properly sourced, it can be removed. But we don't delete articles just because they're not currently sourced properly or because of the behavior of other editors. From WP:RUBBISH, "an article which may currently be poorly written, poorly formatted, lack sufficient sources, or not be a comprehensive overview of the subject, can be improved and rewritten to fix its current flaws. That such an article is lacking in certain areas is a relatively minor problem, and such articles can still be of benefit to Wikipedia. In other words, the remedy for such an article is cleanup, not deletion."
For all of us participating in an AfD, our real burden is to see to it Wikipedia guidelines and policies are followed. From WP:DEL#REASON, we delete "Articles for which thorough attempts to find reliable sources to verify them have failed", meaning we're expected to join in that honest attempt before we !vote delete. Msnicki (talk) 17:14, 13 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I continue to believe there is a notable topic here, but I also agree that this article is terrible. I thought about fixing it, but I don't have the time, the motivation or the books I'd need. Here's what's wrong with the article and how to fix it. I'm still !voting keep, but I'm only one and clearly outnumbered. These things need to be fixed now or my bet is that article will be gone, never to reappear:
  1. The product appears notable, the company not so much. The article should describe the product, which is what appears to have gotten noticed in all the Google books.
  2. Each statement will need to be backed up by a source. If it's an important statement, like "StarWind is a software product that ...", it needs to come from an independent secondary source. Primary sources should be used only to fill in details, e.g., internal architecture.
  3. If you can't back up a statement with a source, take it out. We do not delete articles just because they're WP:TOOSHORT.
  4. Put all the citations into standard format, using {{citation}} templates. A proper citation is not just a link to Amazon. (If the only link you have is to Amazon, omit the URL field and fill in the rest.)
  5. Use the quote="..." field in the citation template to show what facts are reported by each source. Google omits too many pages to do this without going out and buying the books or finding them at the library.
  6. Weed out any WP:PEACOCK language and marketing nonsense about supposedly impressive relationships with big companies. As Joe Friday used to say, "Just the facts, maam." Msnicki (talk) 15:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll re-work the article as product-oriented (as I think it was before but...). And will follow all your recommendations here. Thank you! APS (Full Auto) (talk) 21:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Requesting extension. We are at the end of 7 days and if we close now, it appears the consensus would be delete. But APS (Full Auto) (talk · contribs) is a relatively new user and has expressed intent to rework the article to make a better case for keep. Unless there is strong disagreement, I think we should allow an extra week to see what happens. Msnicki (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose extention. Consensus for "deletion" is quite clear in this case, as was the consensus in the articles first AFD. Extended inclusion only serves to exasperate and waste the time of other productive editors. This article has been recreated repeatedly "7" (SEVEN) times by multiple WP:SPA advertising-only accounts and has been deleted a total of "6" (SIX) times by trusted administrators. Notability has not been demonstrated and the sources clearly fail to support inclusion. It is clear based on the history that StarWind Software Inc. has and will contunue its attempts to exploit wikipedia for their own marketing and advertising purposes. "Salt".--Hu12 (talk) 04:05, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does it mean you're running out of arguments and the only one you have is - something done wrong a few times should be never tried again?

OK, let me know do I have time to continue editing the article for re-vote or not. Thanks! APS (Full Auto) (talk) 16:10, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You won't get a re-vote, only maybe a chance to show us whether or not you can find and cite a couple good sources and change some minds. I asked if we could hold off closing the discussion but an admin could still decide that Hu12 is right and that the consensus is clear. My advice is do your best and let's see what happens. Focus mostly on citing those sources, less on what the article says. And work quickly. Msnicki (talk) 16:35, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From what I understand people are fine with notability, sources and links and it's spamming issue pissing them off, right? I don't think I can control or change this.

OK, will do! Catching up... APS (Full Auto) (talk) 17:02, 15 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think they want everything fixed, APS, but if you can produce two good sources (referring to our discussion on your talk page) that clearly establish notability, that will go a long way. Msnicki (talk) 17:17, 15 December 2011 (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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