Troyp

March 2015

Thank you for your edit to the disambiguation page OBS. However, please note that disambiguation pages are not articles; rather, they are meant to help readers find a specific article quickly and easily. From the disambiguation dos and don'ts, you should:

• Be familiar with the guidelines and style
• Only list articles that readers might reasonably be looking for
• Use short sentence fragment descriptions, with no punctuation at the end
• Use exactly one navigable link ("blue link") in each entry
  • Only add a "red link" if used in an article, and include the "blue link" to that article
• Do not pipe links (unless style requires it) – keep the full title of the article visible
• Do not insert external links or references

Thank you. VeryCrocker (talk) 11:03, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:DABMENTION

Hi.

Quick answer: I deleted the mention too. The so-called mention also need to justify itself with another DABMENTION, which didn't.

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 02:48, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Codename Lisa, what do you mean by that? The mention wasn't in a disambiguation page at all, how could it require a DABMENTION? Troyp (talk) 02:58, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

It was in an index page.

Index pages can index Wikipedia contents, no problem; per WP:NOTDIR, Wikipedia is free to index its own contents however it wishes. But when it comes to external contents that have no articles on Wikipedia, like OBS, Wikipedia is not a directory of everything. (It would have been horrible world if we didn't have this rule: Wikipedia would have been buried under worthless mentions, covering the really good stuff. Same thing happened to Softpedia Hubs.)

Open Broadcaster Software first needs an article or appropriate coverage within an article. Utility stuff like inclusion in index pages and dab pages come later. Even when that happens, you must not like a dab page to another index page; must link directly to the readable stuff.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 03:05, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

"Index page"? Is that what you call a list article? I can't find any reference to "index pages". Can you provide a link to support your various claims about them? (eg. dab pages shouldn't link to a list page, list pages shouldn't include items without an article)? I researched this before adding the item when it was suggested to me, and couldn't see any issues.

Obviously, WP:NOTDIR applies to WP as a whole, but that doesn't in any way imply that an item in a list article must refer to a standalone article or section thereof. Note that OBS isn't a worthless mention: it's a fairly well-known piece of software with hundreds of thousands of users and thirty thousand registered members on its forums. It shouldn't be excluded on the basis of WP:NOTDIR (particularly since more obscure programs have actual articles on WP).

If it turns out that there is some technical reason that OBS shouldn't be on the list article, could you suggest a solution? The problem is that the disambiguation page for "OBS" is missing the most common meaning of that term. This is a problem since people who have heard of "OBS" may look to WP for its meaning, find a list of them and assume one of its entries must be "the OBS everyone talks about", resulting in confusion or misunderstanding. I realize the purpose of a dab page is to help find an article, but it should also help a user know if an important article is missing, so they can look elsewhere. After all, WP is about providing information. Misinforming users should be regarded as a serious problem. Troyp (talk) 04:26, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello again

I used the word "index page" because I was referring to WP:NOTDIR which says "In that sense, Wikipedia functions as an index or directory of its own content." That means embedded lists and standalone lists, and their specific forms like set index articles, comparison pages and navboxes. But, yes, WP:NOTDIR is exactly about what were are discussing. There are millions of important things in this universe and Wikipedia does not write about them. If you want to list OBS, write the article first. And honestly dear, I've heard the "we're misinforming" argument a lot and found that it lacks merit. Absence of material only misinforms those who assume too much on their own; and in that case, that's their own fault. If they fail to mislead themselves here, they'll do it elsewhere.

Now, if you are considering writing an article for Open Broadcaster Software please be sure to study Wikipedia:Notability to find out if it has merits. We already had this article; it was deleted on 7 July 2013. You can find a copy in User:Voxletum/Open Broadcaster Software; from what I am seeing, it has not established its notability.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 09:01, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Codename Lisa,

I'm not sure if there was any specific reason you linked Set index articles. The list article in question is not an SIA ("a list article about a set of items of a specific type that share the same (or similar) name"), nor does WP:SIA contain anything supporting your point (even for the special case of SIAs).

Write the article first is not WP policy or guideline, just an essay written and modified by individual editors. It is intended to address red-links (especially red-link spam), and points to the official guideline Red_link, which doesn't discuss list articles (except with regard to red links: it allows them if the item is notable and may have an article in the future). A sentence of the essay could be interpreted as supporting your own views, but that isn't remotely a WP guideline (since the issue is outside the scope of the essay and the essay is non-normative in any case).

I don't think a user can entirely be blamed for misunderstanding when they find a disambiguation page for "OBS" with dozens of entries - including a (relatively) obscure piece of software - that is missing the most common meaning of the term. When I looked up OBS myself, I at least knew it was a video capture and streaming program (although I didn't know what it stood for or what specific functionality it had). So it was clear to me that OBS was missing from the page. However, if someone had just heard people mention a program called OBS, without having any idea what it was, they might well assume that the program in question was Open Build Service. Sure, they should have considered the possibility of a gap in WP's coverage and checked google as well... but hey, WP's usually got pretty good coverage of software, so maybe they didn't bother. You could ultimately blame the user for any and all misunderstandings, since WP should never be trusted without verification. That does not excuse WP from responsibility for poor quality.

The deleted article lacked third-party links and was also (somewhat) poorly written. Still, the subject was notable - I think it ought to have been improved (or flagged for improvement) rather than deleted. However, the person who removed it appears to be a "serial deleter" and wasn't really interested in anything else. Given the poor quality and the fact it was deleted, I guess I'd be better off writing a new article than fixing up that one. I really didn't want to have to do that, though. I've never even used OBS - or any video streaming software for that matter. I'm not really qualified to write an article on it. Still, maybe when I have time I could write a short article, with just the basic facts, and hopefully someone else will improve it.

In the meantime, though, the entry in List of streaming media systems is a workable alternative. I still can't see any WP policy discouraging it. On the contrary, the guidelines are actually looser than I had previously believed. List articles (that is indeed the proper term - or alternatively, "stand-alone lists") are covered here. Notability of list articles and list article items are further covered in WP:LISTN. (It's not relevant here, but WP:Source list further covers addition of items - primarily wrt V and NPOV.) Note that notability is not even necessarily a requirement:

Because the group or set is notable, the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable

In the case of software lists, they probably should be, though:

In cases where the membership criteria are subjective or likely to be disputed (for example, lists of unusual things or terrorist incidents), membership criteria should be based on reliable sources.

...which is no problem: the item is notable and my entry had sources.

The only mention of requiring an article link is as a possible criterion for inclusion that may be chosen to apply to an individual list article. Even if this criterion were applied to List of streaming media systems, which doesn't appear to be the case, OBS could still be included as a red link:

[Under "common selection criteria"] Every entry meets the notability criteria for its own non-redirect article in the English Wikipedia. Red-linked entries are acceptable if the entry is verifiably a member of the listed group, and it is reasonable to expect an article could be forthcoming in the future.

...although pragmatically, it's probably best not to red-link it, since many editors appear to indiscriminately remove red-linked items.

I'm mentioning these points primarily to convince you that your earlier description of WP guidelines was incorrect on a number of points. I appreciate your removal of my item the first time, since it wasn't correctly formatted for a dab page, but I've now researched the matter quite a bit, and my previous edit to both the list article and dab page appear to in accordance with guidelines (and more importantly, will improve the pages in question). I'd like to be sure you won't delete these edits again before I restore them, though. I'm sure we'd both rather not be reverting edits back and forth.

Thanks, Troyp (talk) 13:42, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

TL; DR.

Wikipedia is not a directory of everything and not an advertisement vessel. If Open Broadcaster Software does not have an article, it does not merit being advertised anywhere in the Wikipedia. This encyclopedia is not a shortcut to fame.

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 10:29, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Codename Lisa,

Are you... accusing me of being some kind of spammer, now? I've never even used OBS. I certainly don't care about it (at this point, I'm frankly sick of discussing it). If I were a spammer, I'd presumably be eager to write an OBS article, so why would I need to even argue this point? Although I'm assuming your accusation isn't particularly serious anyway.

As for your substantive claim that not having an article prohibits it from being mentioned anywhere on WP... that's more extreme than your previous claim, which was already refuted. Lacking a current article does not automatically exclude an item from appearing in a list article (see the links in my previous response) - let alone from being mentioned on WP at all! Dressing it up in wild accusations doesn't change that.

In any case, please don't revert my changes again on these pages again unless you have some genuine reason to do so. If you do have any honest concerns, let me know here.

Thanks, Troyp (talk) 19:20, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't accuse. Accusation bad. Makes enemy; alienates friends.

No angry mastodons.

Dispute resolution better.

Codename Lisa (talk) 20:02, 15 April 2015 (UTC)

Phonetics and language modality

Hi Troy, thanks for your edit to phonetics! I'm surprised we don't have an article on that, so I added a red link to communicative modality. If you have a better idea for the page name, feel free to edit the phonetics article. I also dug up two publications on modality that might be useful---2018 Frontiers in psychology and 2017 Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. If you're interested in that topic, I'd be happy to help work on an article; just let me know. Thanks for your contributions and happy editing! — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:26, 15 September 2020 (UTC)