Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of instant messengers

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was Keep

This is unencyclopedic. This is something you'd find in a tech magazine tidbit, but not an encyclopedia. Mooses 06:03, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Within 5 days of you listing the article Comparison_of_instant_messengers for VFD. I have contributed enormously to make it better, to make those who want to delete the article think twice... It now is definitely not (as Topbanana says) "Nothing really salvageable either" - which was his or her reason to vote to do 'you know'... and also "(unless improved beyond recognition before expiration of VfD)" by Dpbsmith... Those 2 people have based there vote on the reason that the article was at that time not of a good length... Maybe you two users should look at the article again... :-) It only takes one or so users to make an article better whilst it takes a couple of people to delete a very useful and innovative article... How odd... squash 04:44, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Agree. Nothing really salvageable either - delete. - TB 09:33, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC)

Nothing salvvageable either ? That is a ludicriously low comment, as the point of the Wikipedia is to get other people to help and make it better. Just basing your vote on that will be contradicting the wrong point of what the Wikipedia is all about. squash 04:39, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Agree. Delete. SWAdair | Talk 10:28, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Delete: Reviews are POV and non-encyclopedic. Geogre 13:20, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's not a review, just a table of facts... in the articles with countries such as Australia etc. there are a table of facts does that make that the article is superiorly better because it shows the area of Australia is larger then a smaller country. squash 04:39, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Delete --Improv 20:04, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Keep squash 21:30, Sep 15, 2004 (UTC) I don't think it is POV at all, as the article is not directly biased about one instant messenger and can be limited to stop it from being a Point of View. About it not being encyclopedic what about List of -ing words and such, they are not enecyclopedic either and there is basically no trouble with that. And remember that the Wikipedia isn't really exactly what is an Encyclopedia by original terms or a print encyclopedia, so it can accomodate more varieties of articles. Even still you think it is a review... isn't an article supposed to be in an encyclopedia because it IS... an article. There are some people out there who want or need visual interpretations of thing, not all of use people are those typing reading type. Almost encyclopedia article, even VFD project page is POV... as you are thinking that some articles are not encyclopedic... isn't that a persons' view ? Can it be not ?... I doubt that this article will have a negative impact on the Wikipedia, only the people who are paranoia etc. of these type of articles will use their Wikipedia rights to try to delete this innovative, by the sense it hasn't been on the Wikipedia before... piece of article... Good Day.
Delete (unless improved beyond recognition before expiration of VfD). Mooses is correct. Except... the present article is not even good enough to be a magazine review. The entry in the "file transfer" row is "yes" for all of them; the entry in the "price" row is "free" for all of them except Trillian Pro. The promised "technical details" are absent. It doesn't even say what hardware/OS the things run on, whether they are interoperable, what protocol they use... there is nothing here that isn't in the Instant Messenger article. Suggest the contributor work on improving and expanding the Instant Messenger article. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:41, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That was planned to be added, as the article has just been started but has been inappropriately disturbed by this VFD... And I would not waste my time on making the article better because you people have vote to delete an article with a chance of becoming a good article. And plus I do not think the article is POV... it's only a table of comparison of a full page of text saying that "X" messenger is better then the other "Y" messenger... I hope you people have fun, ruining another persons piece of work... (sarcastic) squash 05:46, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

Oh and by the way, the technical details are the protocols... and the OS, interoperable, protocol are all added in the table... squash 01:10, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Delete. We are writing an encyclopedia, not competing with Consumer Reports or CNet. A strict comparison between commercially available products is not appropriate to an encyclopedia. 1) The content will age too quickly. 2) There are better and more current sources for this kind of technical comparison. The article was well intentioned but it belongs in a different medium. Rossami 06:05, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The content of the age won't age too quickly as there are always people willing to edit, what is your pain is another persons pleasure and joy. If you think that there are better and more current sources then the Wikipedia, I think you are wrong. How can the other sources have better and more current up to date fast then a whole bunch of wikipedia editings working to make the article better. Take the CNET download.com front page for example it takes a couple of days until any major release like Mozilla Firefox or such be updated to be on the front page or even listed on it. squash

Delete, unencyclopedic. Nobody has fun "ruining" your work, squash, but we can't save unencyclopedic articles just because of the effort that went into them. This does seem like a good table to put on your personal web site, though. And for what it's worth, if you want to nominate List of -ing words or anything else in Category:Rhyme lists for deletion, you've got my vote. —Triskaideka 06:14, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Delete. Unencyclopedic. — Gwalla | Talk 16:38, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Comment: If it's decided that this article isn't encyclopedic, someone may want to take a look at this similar article as well: Comparison of web browsers. --Chessphoon 18:49, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Category:Comparisons is the whole lot of them, and look at the edit history... and if there Comparison_between_Cricket_and_Baseball and similar articles. I don't see why similar comparison articles should not be allowed even it's products. Voting for just one unencyclopedic article that it is bad will lead to the wrong impression that the article is bad and thus all the other comparison articles are bad. This is article is not a review but merely a table showing facts... a user can choose whether or not to take the information seriously or not, just like any other Wikipedia article.

KEEP ugen64 21:00, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Keep. This appears to be a reasonable information. Or merge into Instant messenger, since this is a quite short article on its own. Andris 21:04, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Delete Shard 22:37, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
KEEP. Useful information, and I'd qualify it as "encyclopedic" just as much as a table of anything else with comparisons. This is not a review, this is a simple page of facts. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 04:05, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Keep or merge. –Andre (talk) 04:21, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Keep. Zocky 04:22, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Keep. Aphrael Runestar 04:22, 2004 Sep 18 (UTC)
Keep and/or merge (See reply below to Squash's comment). The comparison of web browsers is useful because of the differences. The comparison of cricket and baseball is useful because of the differences. In this case, there's almost nothing different between the actual clients (I'm not sure why GAIM's file transfer support is only listed as partial, because I don't see anything partial about it). The best thing would be for this to go into the article on IM clients and say "All clients have this in common: support for Windows, etc., file transfer, and are free except for Trillian Pro". That's much more concise and conveys the same amount of information. Deleting this will not set bad precedent, but will actually encourage people to make comparisons of things only when there's actually something to compare! CryptoDerk 04:32, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

It WILL have a bad precedent on the other comparison articles as if an article of a similar kind is deleted, people will likely be going around and doing the same (voting pages for VFD) that is on the other comparison articles. Gaim has partial file transfer support as it does not support all the file transfer between users of other clients. Remember that the article is an inital start and has not been near complete the point where major work may not be needed. Overtime, other wikipedia users will think of things to add to the comparison that people at this time cannot predict such as new features of a client that is soon to be copied by other instant messengers. squash 04:43, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Would you vote to keep a large table comparison of 8 pastries that listed that each pastry included flour, eggs, milk, water, butter, and sugar, and that the only difference between them was that one pastry contained cream, and that 3 of them also had frosting? The majority of the information can be presented without putting it in a huge table. I'm not against the information, just the way in which it is presented, considering that there's so much in common. There's enough information out there already to actually make a table of comparisons that contains meaningful differences.

That being said, as I look at the article now it seems to be better, so I am changing my vote. CryptoDerk 05:12, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

I should also make a note that if several useful categories where there were actual differences between the clients were added, in accordance with my above statements, I would change my vote to keep. CryptoDerk 04:40, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Keep. Tables summarising key features of items covered in encyclopedias are normal and this example, particularly after its substantial expansion prior to most of the keep votes, fits perfectly in that category. If the community decides to merge it, it can come back here for what will probably be easily agreeable deletion once that has been done. Jamesday 04:33, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
My vote's to keep. I find it more neutral to do comparisons this way than to argue the merits of each IM program over its rivals on the instant messenger article pages. No prose, no POV, just features and footnotes; terse and to the point. I like it. --Ardonik.talk() 05:00, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)
Delete. Useful table, and I don't agree that it is "unencyclopedic", but it should be merged back into the main instant messaging page. Neither page is anywhere near too long at the moment. --Staz 16:42, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you want it to be merge, why are you voting 'that', you could have added 'that' and merge, if thats what you wanted. *whistle* squash 00:37, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Keep. I think this article could easily grow to be useful, even if it isn't right now. There are a few things to be worked out, like whether to focus on protocols or clients (AIM, MSN etc are both, but Jabber is one and Trillian is the other) and how to clarify some of the criteria and descriptions, but that's what the edit button's for, folks! ;) - IMSoP 16:50, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Keep. Someone's worked a lot on this, and it's quite useful. Ivan 03:39, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Merge. Useful but incomplete.Tmq 16:11, 2004 Sep 20 (UTC)
Keep, maybe Merge. Quite useful. Nadavspi 17:50, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.