English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Articles for deletion/MediaCoder

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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. (non-admin closure) Timotheus Canens (talk) 18:05, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

MediaCoder

MediaCoder (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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This article merits deletion because of:

Lack of Notability: This article neither asserts any notability nor there is any significant coverage on this subject in reliable sources.

  1. The article itself claims no notability.

(updated) False assertion of Notability: This article attempts to establish its notability through Bombardment of passing mentions in reliable sources. There is no significant coverage.

  1. Sources mentioned in this article only touch the matter lightly. For an example of such sources, see below.
  2. Searches conducted in Google Scholar, Google Books and Google News came up with only trivial coverages in form of passing mentions is sentences like "... in test that I conducted in MediaCoder..." or "...such as MediaCoder which supports CUDA..."
  3. PC World Download does feature this product but no user has ever reviewed this product. Only a handful of users have rated it. No PC World Editor has reviewed this product.
  4. CNET Download does feature this product but No CNET Editor has reviewed this product. Very few users have ever rated it.

Lack of reliable secondary sources: This artice does not cite any source except for a handful of insignificant instances.

Serious advertisement role: This article is written like an advertisement. It's primary contributor is Stanleyhuang (talk · contribs), the application developer, who has only contributed to this article and sees fit to dismiss the fact that this article is an Adware and instead write "MediaCoder is a freeware [~snip~] MediaCoder is free of charge and is supported by bundling OpenCandy software recommendation service in its installer." (Also see Serious statements from the author of MediaCoder) Fleet Command (talk) 23:18, 31 December 2009 (UTC) Updated 09:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:46, 31 December 2009 (UTC)
  • Delete as per nom. Handschuh-talk to me 07:32, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Comment. This book has about a page and a half on it, although it's in Polish. Pcap ping 10:30, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. Per the above source and two pages in This O'Reilly Japan book, and this this German book discusses it on two pages together with another (similar?) program called Super from eRightSoft. All of this does not amount to trivial coverage for a program of this kind. The nomination appears to be a case of "it's not popular with English speakers, so delete". Even if you don't grok those languages at all, you can tell it's the same program based on the screenshots. As for English user reviews, I had no trouble finding some of those too, and there are about 45 comments on the portal site for this kind of software (alexa rank). There's a web world wide outside CNnet... And the issue you take with the license, which can be fixed by editing, appears to be a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Found discussion of the adware issue too. Pcap ping 10:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
    • Wikipedia verifiability policy demands that "Articles should be based upon reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." I'm afraid you have found no single well-established authority which has commented on MediaCoder. What you've found is either blogs and forum posts or otherwise books that only lightly touch the matter. Note that SUPER, which you mentioned, also had an article in Wikipedia which is now deleted. Fleet Command (talk) 12:26, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
    • And by the way, what I mentioned is an issue of advertisement not license.Wikipedia is not an advertisement platform. Fleet Command (talk) 12:26, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
      • O'Reilly Media is not a reliable source for computing material? Pcap ping 13:43, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
      • And WSiP (pl:WSiP) is considered the "Poland's top textbook publisher" according to Reuters. Pcap ping 09:41, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
      • More sources: [1] a Pearson Education book, [2] a tutorial in the netzwelt.de online magazine, which is a top 100 German site alexa entry, used a fair bit on the de.wiki -- at the bottom of their main page, they claim 1,57 million unique visitors per month. Pcap ping 10:47, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Strong reason: [3] It won the March 2009 round-up in Chip.de, an online mag in top 20 sites in Germany (alexa ranking). Pcap ping 15:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)
        • Objection: Your strong reason has one big problem: It compares MediaCoder with SUPER (whose article is deleted but you restored it) and XMediaRecode, all of which are equally non-notable.

        • You really need to stop bludgeoning, Pcap. Your sources all have at least one of the following problems:

          1. Obscure (45 user reviews is too little for reputation)
          2. Only touch the matter lightly (listing this software's name as converter is not enough)
          3. English speakers cannot verify

          Given the fact that English is considered the language of international communications, I expect you yo bring an example of a review from a notable source like PC Magazine, eWeek, PC World, Byte, etc. or an English book from a credible writer or from a credible publisher. Even an English blog post from a famous figure of computer world would suffice. Otherwise, you'll have to consider publishing this article in non-English Wikipedia. Fleet Command (talk) 08:15, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

        • And let us not forget: This article has long been written like an advertisement. That is enough for deleting it. Fleet Command (talk) 08:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
          • Please drop this WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality. Providing sources is not "bludgeoning" anything but your cognitive dissonance. The other articles of this kind you deleted were restored exactly because their topics are notable. Pcap ping 09:29, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
          • And learn some foreign languages, or use google translate if you're lazy but distrustful. Pcap ping 09:33, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
          • If you insist on English sources, Martin Brinkmann's blog, ghacks.net is in the same ballpark with eWeek as far as audience goes [4] [5]. Pcap ping 09:52, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

  • Let's make it clear for you: This article has three problems: Notability, Reliable sources and serving as an advertisement. All these problem must be solved if this article is to be included in Wikipedia; all not just one. In other word, if you incorporate all these sources in the article and even incorporate them in footnotes, the article must not look like the promotional product page of its web site plus some testimonials. (Providing testimonials is another well-know technique of advertisement.) A rule of thumb is: When you read a Wikipedia article about a product you must not feel that nothing is added to your knowledge than when you were reading its product page info.

    As you can see, notability is just your smallest issue.

    Fleet Command (talk) 06:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

    • I think notability has been clearly established from two dozen reliable sources. As for WP:PROMOTION, you don't seem to understand what that actually means. Here's an example where I explained why an article read promotional to me. Please do the same for this one; i.e. write on the talk page which passages you think fail WP:NPOV. Besides, these issues are normally fixed by editing, deleting the entire article is only the last resort if no reliable sources exists from which to write it in WP:NPOV, which clearly is not the case here. Pcap ping 09:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
      • Well, looks like we have a difference of opinion. Obviously, I think this article is beyond redemption and you think there is no truth-telling saint that is more sacred than this article. I think it is time to stand down and have others cast their votes. Fleet Command (talk) 12:48, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Keep. Looks like a decent article to me, I don't see what the bother is. Some of the writing is awkward but that's just a matter of WP:BETTER. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 02:48, 3 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Keep - The article seems reasonably balanced and the product has been recognized as significant by reliable sources. The article has 34 references, of which more than half seem to be in English. By surfing the web one can learn that the product is no longer open source, and the author seems to have unnecessarily placed himself in some licensing difficulties. This info, while interesting, has probably not been published by any reliable source yet, so it can't be included. EdJohnston (talk) 01:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

    • Comment. Thank you, Ed Johnston. Well said.

      However, I feel obliged to attract your attention to a quotation from WP:BIG:

      Notability isn't determined by something's quantity of members, but rather by the quality of the subject's verifiable, reliable sources. An article on a topic is more likely to pass the notability test with a single article in Encyclopedia Britannica than because it has 1 million views on YouTube.

I nominated this article because it seems to me that sources which mention this product lack sufficient quality. For example, the USA Today source might sound like a very credible name. However, if you take a closer look, the only thing that it states is:

So you may need to convert a video to a different format. MediaCoder can convert videos between a variety of different formats. MediaCoder isn't the easiest program. But it will help you with difficult files. MediaCoder doesn't work with copy-protected videos. It will run on Macs, but features are limited.

— Kim Komando, USA Today column, 21 February 2008
You see? All it says is: MediaCoder is free but it is not one of the best. In my humble opinion, this source does not add to the notability of subject. The other source from USA Today, which our friend Pcap has introduced, says:

The camcorder may have come with software to do that. If not, MediaCoder is a free conversion program, but it's for advanced users. You can also try Nero 9 ($80), Pinnacle Studio Plus 12 ($100) or Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum ($85). With a Mac, use iMovie 8. Find links to all these programs at www.komando.com/news.

— Kim Komando, USA Today column, 6 November 2008]
Again, this source merely mentions the product in a passing manner and not as good solution but rather as an option to which one must succumb. In the mean time, Wikipedia notability guideline demands "significant coverage".
In my humble opinion, these sources only take away notability. It is not the matter of Lots of Sources, but rather, it is the matter of Significant Coverage in Reliable Sources.
Again, thanks for your opinion. It was a significant opinion. Fleet Command (talk) 08:29, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
More example of insignificance of sources (English only)
Source Problem
CNET Review Only trivial coverage. The only mention of MediaCoder is "Video playback requires you to convert your files using the included MediaCoder application before transferring the files to the Memorex MMP8640."
Brisbane Times, 7 August 2008 Trivial mention. It just says "the supplied MediaCoder software isn't preset for the LXPI". No significant coverage as mandated by WP:N.
New York Times, 12 June 2008 Only trivial coverage. The only mention of MediaCoder is "The open-source program MediaCoder (mediacoder.sourceforge.net) may also work for you."
New York Times, 10 September 2008 Only trivial coverage. The only mention is "there are plenty of programs to choose from, and some, like MediaCoder (mediacoder.sourceforge.net) are free open-source solutions."
PC World Review 1. Due to use of vague phrases, it cannot be used to cite anything encyclopedic in the article, except for saying that "PC World mentioned it". Basically, all it says is: "MediaCoder is a converter with plug-ins that doesn't run on Vista." Only marginally useful in a Critical Reception section.

2. Obscure. Only one user has voted for the software.

Perhaps its best if someone with knowledge of foreign language check the other sources. Fleet Command (talk) 10:21, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the most fantastic misrepresentation of sources I've ever seen in an AfD. Cherry picking the sources with the least coverage and tearing them up is an amazing straw man argument. I urge everyone to read the last paragraph in the lead of the actual article, and see in what context those sources are cited. Pcap ping 10:43, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
I cherry-picked sources with highest reputation for being reliable. And yes, I also encourage our readers to take notice of the context. Fleet Command (talk) 19:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the lead section, as written now, is yet another reason: It is advertisement-like: Remember those street advertisers who try to stop you in the street and say: "Please! Please try our brand! It is certified by this and that. It's this celebrity and that celebrity’s favorite. It is the highest-selling in this country and that country." That's how the lead section of this article looks like. Fleet Command (talk) 19:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Keep. Coverage documented by Pcap indicate notability. Can the article be improved? Sure. But that's never been an argument for deletion. TJRC (talk) 22:27, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Keep: and improve it (in near future). Deletionists, please do not ruin people's work (even that's ad, copied or something else). Fix, not delete. Silverlife (talk) 22:45, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Delete. This article fails Wikipedia General Notability Guideline as it has received no significant coverage from reliable independent sources.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Rasay rewelra babe (talk • contribs) 03:49, January 6, 2010
  • Keep If it wasn't notable, it wouldn't be mentioned so often, in so many different news sources. For software, that is enough. Dream Focus 23:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep: I have discovered that MediaCoder had been a nominee of SourceForge 2007 Community Award Choice for Best Multimedia Project award (although it lost to Audacity). Therefore, there is no argument that MediaCoder is a notable subject. The issue of advertisement can now be easily resolved. I'd like to withdraw from this nomination. Fleet Command (talk) 05:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
  • You can withdraw your nomination, but delete votes are still outstanding from two other editors, so the AfD should be allowed to run as usual. EdJohnston (talk) 07:23, 7 January 2010 (UTC)


  • Keep This is a well known converter app, and seems to have many reviews (Far more than some software on Wikipedia) the article does need tidying up and the tone needs changing but not deleting, methinks Fleet Command is protesting rather loudly for little reason? lɘɘяɘM яɘɫƨɐƮ 17:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)
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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