User talk:Ajaxguru

Hello - I hereby disclose my affiliation with Isomorphic Software.

SmartClient

do not add an external link to smartclient. the article should only include links to articles.

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I have placed the following message on the talkpage of the above article;

The originating writer of this piece is user:Ajaxguru(correct link, userpage not created) and limits their contribution to Wikipedia to articles relating to SmartClient, the Ajax framework and a few other connected items. Outside of these the only other use was to complain to another contributor about the removal of external links. Insofar that both SmartClient and Ajax have plenty of Google hits from many sources this is obviously an appropriate subject for Wikipedia, but it seems to have possibly been created solely as a form of publicity or promotion by someone closely related to the subject. There is no obvious POV, but after the introduction the article reads like a marketing pitch. Perhaps someone with experience of the software/platform/whateveritis (it means nothing to me) can edit the article? I suggest that, whilst assuming WP:good faith, that any comments by user Ajaxguru should be weighed carefully.

I have also placed an 'advert' template within the article. Please note that Wikipedia is not a vehicle for the promotion or publicising of items, and that all contributions should be written to Wiki standards.

This comment is just to remind you that other editors may make edits which reflect their understanding of the policy and style of Wikipedia. LessHeard vanU 21:17, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of SmartClient

The article SmartClient has been proposed for deletion because of the following concern:

No credible indication of importance; likely COI in creation of article, completely unsourced apart from to the company's own website.

While all constructive contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, pages may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{proposed deletion/dated}} notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the page to address the issues raised. Removing {{proposed deletion/dated}} will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. In particular, the speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 09:16, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Naypta:

Isomorphic SmartClient is a technology that's been around for almost 20 years, and is used all over the world, so I don't think it's relevance can be questioned, especially given that Wikipedia has pages for lots of just-started open source projects that barely have any usage.

However, it's true that the page about SmartClient mostly sources the smartclient.com website. If you click those links however, you are immediately offered links to other sites talking about SmartClient and SmartGWT (eg, JBoss).

I've made an attempt to add some more direct links to companies using SmartClient or SmartGWT, as well as public discussions about it. See if you think this improves the page.

I've taken the liberty of removing (for now) the suggestion to delete the page entirely, as I don't think that's really in question. Apologies if this violates protocol in some way - I haven't done wikipedia editing in a while.

Ajaxguru (talk) 23:10, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Ajaxguru: Hi, thanks for taking the time to respond. Wikipedia does not operate on a concept of "relevance", unfortunately; rather, it operates on notability and verifiability. Specifically, articles generally require significant coverage in independent reliable sources. As far as I can tell, none of the sources in the article meet that standard, and I'm not able to obviously find other sources that do. User-generated content like forums are not reliable sources. However, you've contested the proposed deletion, as you are entitled to do; to that end, I will list the article at Articles for Deletion for a deletion discussion, in which you are welcome to take part.

I will remind you that if you are an employee of Isomorphic, you must follow the processes for disclosure of your paid connection, and if you have any other external relationship with them or this product, you must follow the COI processes.

Thanks! Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 08:13, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi @Naypta:

I do work for Isomorphic, and I apologize for not stating this earlier - my account and my activity on wikipedia predates that policy and I have not done anything except try to save this page since then.

SmartClient is definitely considered "notable" in web development, and a previous editor, above, seemed to take it as obvious that we are "notable" given that there are tens of thousands of pages out there talking about us.

However, you are imposing a very very high standard of notability, since publications with editorial boards (eg NYT) generally do not write about tech, at least not in any depth. It seems that almost all references to technical topics would be wiped from wikipedia if this standard were applied consistently. That would be a shame, and greatly reduce the utility of the site, since developers often use wikipedia to get a quick overview of a technology. I tried to create the SmartClient page consistent with that use case: just the bare facts, no marketing-style claims.

As far as notability, I already added a link to an article from the trade magazine InfoQ - did you notice that? And although it would take a bunch of searching, and likely the references will be on the Wayback Machine since tech firms are not good at permanently archiving content, I could provide all of the following:

1. SmartClient's inclusion in multiple Gartner "magic quadrants" (Gartner is an industry analyst firm)

2. multiple posts/articles about SmartClient from the old Ajax news site "Ajaxian" (later purchased by TechTarget)

3. a joint webinar with Forrester about our technology (Forrester is an industry analyst firm)

4. multiple interviews with our CTO (SDTimes, TechTarget)

5. our CTO appearing in panels at trade shows (not just about SmartClient)

6. our company presenting on various topics at trade shows (not paid appearances)

Do any of those, or perhaps all of them in aggregate, rise to wikipedia's standard of notability?

Also, I just wanted to clarify, assuming we achieve the standard of notability, if I want to put some useful information here like a release history, as is present for similar technology pages, presumably I can actually link to the smartclient.com site for that, right? Here again, NYT does not cover software releases.

Similarly, it would be very relevant to point out that just about every company you've ever heard of uses SmartClient technology, as breadth of use is one of the most basic things you might want to understand about any given technology. However, in tech in general, articles are not usually written about who is using what tech. Is it fair to link to our site saying something like "Isomorphic claims" a long list of well-known customers? After all, if we tried to put up fake customer names or fake case studies, we'd be sued - every one of those mentions has been vetted.

Nomination of SmartClient for deletion

A discussion is taking place as to whether the article SmartClient is suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia according to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines or whether it should be deleted.

The article will be discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/SmartClient until a consensus is reached, and anyone, including you, is welcome to contribute to the discussion. The nomination will explain the policies and guidelines which are of concern. The discussion focuses on high-quality evidence and our policies and guidelines.

Users may edit the article during the discussion, including to improve the article to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion notice from the top of the article. Naypta ☺ | ✉ talk page | 08:18, 19 June 2020 (UTC)