Talk:Objectivity/DB

Still like advert?

Does anyone feel the 'reads like an advert' tag is still required? For other tags, I removed the Cleanup tag because that looks OK to me. Are there some comments on further work it needs? RJFJR (talk) 20:55, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

RfC: Remove issues list?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Although I am a technical writer at the company in question, I have updated the article to make it current and accurate. It was languishing in a stale state due to inactivity, probably because of the size of the company and the level of specialization of the software. Several of the links for references were 404, and the latest functionality of the Objectivity/DB software was not included. The article has two issues listed at the top that were added in 2010. I believe those issues were addressed quite some time back, as indicated by the comment above this one. I am hoping for some confirmation that the current article is ready to have the issues removed. Or, if changes to the article are needed first, that would be welcomed as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.207.23.2 (talk) 15:51, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

@Jjrenzel: Thank you for disclosing your affiliation and asking for feedback. I assume you the same person as user Jjrenzel?

I don't think those issues are addressed, and your edit makes it slightly worse. It's very easy to find problems with this article, main problems being the overuse of adjectives (WP:PEACOCK), vague claims (WP:WEASEL), stating subjective opinions as facts (WP:POV) and general tone that tries to sell the product, rather than describe it neutrally (WP:TONE).

For example, blurbs like "data intensive or real-time applications that manipulate highly complex, inter-related data" belong to marketing brochures, but not Wikipedia.

Claims like "Eliminating the relational Join operations inherent in a relational database gives Objectivity/DB a marked performance advantage, in orders of magnitude." are inherently subjective and debatable -- I believe removing joins from the database simply pushes them to the application, which is a net loss in performance and increase in complexity. It's best to avoid such statements in the first place and especially if you are affiliated with the product. If they are to be described, they need to come from a published reliable source, preferably independent of the subject, and the claims need to be attributed to the source (WP:YESPOV).

And then there are dishonest claims like "Many RDBMSs manifest a view of the results before returning any of them", if it's implying that no results are returned until the whole query completes?

My advice, if you want to arrive at a neutral article without these tags, stubify it: ruthlessly delete everything that's subjective or does not come from an independent secondary source. This may sound counterintuitive to building a good article, but we're after quality not quantity. -- intgr [talk] 21:36, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm impressed with the speed of response! Wikpedia runs like a well-oiled machine.

I'm not comfortable with deleting a lot of original material that I didn't author, but I would like to try to address your feedback and make appropriate changes where I can. I will remove some of the items you have identified as having a marketing orientation. I can add several references that talk about how in object databases, objects can store references to other objects, which is how joins are avoided. Thank you for taking the time to provide the feedback -- Jjrenzel (talk) 18:36, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but things often don't work this fast, I just happened to have this article on my watchlist and take an interest in getting rid of advert-ish articles.

Don't be afraid to edit things, see WP:BOLD. Old content can always be seen/restored from the article history if people disagree with you. And you have my support to stubify. -- intgr [talk] 19:11, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

• I have been invited to comment, but I'm not sure what I am meant to be commenting on. I will comment anyway.

The article reads like a marketing brochure, using promotional language, and fails to explain what the product does. The second sentence "It allows applications to make standard C++, C#, Java, or Python objects persistent without having to convert the data objects into the rows and columns used by a ... RDBMS" is not helpful. I have written C++ applications with persistent objects, and it never occurred to me to convert them into rows and columns, or indeed to use a database at all. Maproom (talk) 08:21, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment Most RfCs have a Support/Oppose section (sometimes they're separated) and a Discussion section. This makes it easier for the closing editor to determine consensus. Ca2james (talk) 06:27, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose removing issues tags. Most contributorsdo have a close connection with the company and the article does read like a promotional marketing brochure that extolls the virtues of the product. While a brief description of the product is useful, the article really needs to discuss what makes it notable neutrally state facts about the product. I couldn't find a whole lot of reliable sources for this article so I'm unconvinced that it should even exist. I know it was up for AfD many years ago but I'm not sure it would be kept now; does it meet the software notability guideline? If not, it would be better to have an article on the company itself and to include the most notable facts about this product there instead of having a separate article for the product. Ca2james (talk) 06:38, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

  Just a comment, if you ask people to "discuss what makes it notable" then you will end up with exactly this kind of bad article, with WP:PEACOCK statements etc. To the contrary, you should encourage people to only state neutral facts about the subject. -- intgr [talk] 14:08, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

  Thank you - I didn't think about that when I wrote the above. I've rewritten my sentence above and struck out the previous writing. Ca2james (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support removal of the issues list. I have no connection with the product, have no prospect of using it, and have no confident memory of ever having heard of it. My only reason for my presence here is the RFC. However, many of the criticisms voiced above seem to me to be niggles in the context of the article content as I first read it, and by now most (all?) objections have been met fairly reasonably I'd say. It certainly doesn't read much like an ad to me; rather dry if anything. Notability? Notability need not mean that there is no rival for its celebrity status, but only that a reasonable number of persons interested in the field might reasonably want to know something about it. There are (hundreds of?) thousands of routinely accepted articles on less notable commercial products. I might prefer to see some substantial examples of its style of application and of publicly accessible projects based on the software or design, but if editors already are wrangling about such material as there is, I suspect that would cause howls of righteousness. As for having an editor with a publicly, voluntarily stated connection with the product, we need a certain sense of perspective in such matters; expertise is expertise and to be valued accordingly; so is frankness. Better have him openly tell what needs telling and reveal his interests so that we can verify that he is not pleading a case, than have an apologist prime someone with no attributable interest to say the same things. JonRichfield (talk) 07:25, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment It seems to me that most of the criticisms apply conflicting standards; on the one hand they speak of reading like an advertising brochure (which I deny, as an uninvolved reader) and complain because there is insufficient detail on what the product actually does. The latter criticism certainly has substance, eg the "persistent objects" thing, but when the authors are not allowed to make claims that could be interpreted as favourable comments in case they could be read as peacockery, how can they describe what the software does? I suggest that objectors invite a few explanatory elaborations and illustrative examples, and edit them for neutrality and substance, then think again. JonRichfield (talk) 15:51, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

  "complain because there is insufficient detail on what the product actually does" — No, there is nothing bad about having stub articles. And it certainly wouldn't make the article more advert-y. -- intgr [talk] 03:14, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose removal - seems the better article. I suppose one might contact the tagger Sole Soul and ask, or limint input to what RS sources have, or just do a major rewrite to remove all pleasant adjectives and claims. But there really doesn't look like much Sole Soul or RS activity to use, and I think a neutral/empty article would be worse not better. The tags seem to give quality full disclosure for the article and it's only an issue if they were removed. Markbassett (talk) 14:28, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

  A "neutral and empty" article would comply with WP:NPOV and WP:V, which I appreciate as a Wikipedia editor and so should you. -- intgr [talk] 03:14, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment @intgr On the implausible assumption that you are being serious, by that line of reasoning there would be nothing wrong with an entire stub WP, never mind a stub article; it certainly would save a lot of bandwidth, storage, midnight oil and backchat. However, it also would conflict a lot more strongly with the fundamental purposes of WP and would lack a great deal of what notability demands, not to mention WP:common sense. There is everything bad about stub articles, except when there is a reasonable prospect and intention of having the stub filled out to the point that it is rewarding and gratifying to read. "(∃ Objectivity/DB)" might seem terribly prim and proper in terms of the five pillars, but its value as an article would be eviscerated, as would (∃ Wikipedia:Yeah, like whatever, maaannn... and thass all) which, be it never so succinct in its role as the worlds most compact, economical, and all-embracing encyclopaedia, I would deplore as an editor and as a reader, and so should you. JonRichfield (talk) 13:20, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

  Nice straw man, you need to adjust your tone. Those policies are there to make sure Wikipedia is reliable and provides a framework for cooperation. There are tons and tons of fair and well sourced articles on Wikipedia and I am not advocating removing anything from those. But then there are obscure articles like this one, which drag down Wikipedia's image and give people the impression that they can get away with writing anything on Wikipedia.

  I strongly believe that no information is better than misinformation. Wikipedia is not the place for marketing and PR departments to promote their products, the organizations have their own websites for that. In fact, those agents are a big drain on Wikipedia's volunteer resources, because they get paid for creating a mess and it falls upon volunteers to clean up.

  Stubifying is just one low-cost way to address those issues by a member of the community, when — as frequently is the case — there aren't enough interested neutral volunteers to write a fair article. Until then, the "advert" tag serves as a warning to the readers. But if someone steps up to rewrite the article, I totally agree that's a better way to go.

  I don't know you so I can only guess, but perhaps the reason you can't see it is that you are not familiar with the details of database software. I am and I pointed out some factual and tone problems among many, at the top of this section.

  You say stubifying would "conflict a lot more strongly with the fundamental purposes of WP", but the policies disagree with you there, WP:V encourages removal of unsourced and suspicious content. WP:Common sense is an essay I agree with in principle, but it only works when people share that "common sense". Clearly we have a disagreement here, and the essay itself says to "base your argument on existing agreements, community foundation issues and the interests of the encyclopedia, not your own common sense". -- intgr [talk] 05:29, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

@intgr "Nice straw man, you need to adjust your tone." Is that really what you meant to say? If so baaad luck little warrior; your problem isn't that you don't know me, but that you don't know you; next time try reading what you write. Other things you don't know much about either, include information and the nature of reference sources, or you wouldn't be so glibly self-righteous about your originality in your strong belief that no information is better than misinformation. I am not in this game to measure pricks, but I reckon that I very likely was into DB before you were born and probably in more contexts as well, but then I also don't care, and it doesn't amount to a Codd tuple whether whether I was or not; if you knew so much about DB you could see that is not the issue. Either way, what I said stands, for the reasons that I said it and you will have to gratify your taste for invective and generalisation by reading your own; I'm outta here. Enjoy the rest of the festive season. JonRichfield (talk) 08:27, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Added two more references

Added two more references to support new material. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jjrenzel (talk • contribs) 16:44, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

(I modified this to a level 3 heading, to make it subordinate to the RfC. Unless there's some reason for having this in a separate subsection, you might consider refactoring to remove the heading and move the comment into chronological position within the RfC discussion.) ‑‑Mandruss ☎ 00:08, 14 December 2014 (UTC)