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 Delete Needs substantial real world sources to show notability. Spartaz ^Humbug! 07:02, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FreeEMS[edit]

FreeEMS (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

non-notable project; not in release, no external sources, no real notability claim. Brianyoumans (talk) 21:28, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - blogs and forum posts, but no reliable sources -- Whpq (talk) 16:23, 18 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - reliable sources do exist but are not listed, and the subject does appear notable. Consider tagging article for referencing, but it does contain a lot of potentially useful information. MediaMob (talk) 21:28, 19 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe I didn't look hard enough, but where is the reference to FreeEMS in that link? The article is about "do it yourself EFI", but I don't see any mention of FreeEMS. Brianyoumans (talk) 02:22, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - make that two pairs of eyes that were unable to find any mention of FreeEMS in the article. Based on the comments below, it would seem that blog and forum posts really are the only coverage available. -- Whpq (talk) 12:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - You are both right, the above page predates FreeEMS, however as noted by Koivusalo when something is a developmental thing the only references will be those that are directly involved. Should I urge all members to post their own webpages about FreeEMS to make it "notable"? You need to separate developmental free software which doesn't exist outside the internet from popular culture which is widely referenced everwhere. Fredio54 21/8/2008 3:35 AM NZST —Preceding undated comment was added at 15:35, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep - There is no point stuffing around here really. The project is new and although there have been references to it not posted by me on various sites including Grass Roots Motorsports all but one of them that I know of have been on forums by interested parties. I know of one commercial site linking to diyef.org and FreeEMS, but that probably isn't enough for you (it is a wiki site, but only Stuart the owner can edit it). The funny thing is, I could buy 10 domains and put up pages (edited as easily as this is) referencing FreeEMS and you wouldn't complain. This process seems arbitrary and easily thwarted.
  
  If the wiki rules are hard one-eyed rules (as I guess they must be to prevent misuse in certain circumstances) then there is little point discussing this as "Brianyoumans" will win the argument based on objective sources and it will be gone. I've taken a backup of the content so that I can put it back when it becomes "wiki-notable", thus deletion will incur no material loss other than less publicity for a fundamentally good cause.
  
  Even though the project is probably not "wiki-notable" I think you should step back and consider that it is in fact highly notable as being the only FOSS engine control solution currently available and being worked on actively. The history is that there was an active site (the site still exists, but is not active) diy-efi.org with a community of people on it working on home brew EFI solutions. 2 of them (Bruce and Al) put out a kit to make some cash. It was/is called MegaSquirt. Because people are generally after the quick fix it took off and the old site faded and became unused. What wasn't apparent at the time and still largely isn't is that the entire effort is a profitable enterprise and not actually open source as defined by the OSI. Basically the entire "diy efi" community is now supporting a business and there is no free and open source solution bar FreeEMS available.
  
  To lose a little publicity for this will not ruin the cause, but at the same time it won't help it either. I'm sure you have a conscience somewhere inside, so you will live with the decision you make in the end ;-) Lastly, the project IS in release with 15 versions of the firmware available and 5 versions of the thermistor tool available and 9 versions of the hardware schematics available. Because it is DIY "released" means a very different thing to a commercial project. So, if you stick by the rules and objective "wiki-notability" is the rule, then you should delete it. If you have morals and can see with two eyes and a mind, you probably shouldn't. Your call. It'll be back up in a few months anyway with more progress and a rapidly swelling community regardless so it's inconsequential what you choose to do now.
  
  On another note, why does my "watch this article" not work? I expected emails about changes to that page and never got any. Fredio54 20/8/2008 8:30 PM NZST

• Comment - "To lose a little publicity for this will not ruin the cause" would seem to indicate that this article's intention is for advertising. -- Whpq (talk) 12:28, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - How do you advertise something that is free (as in speech AND beer)? I don't believe you can. It is more akin to evangelism that advertising if anything. I was originally inspired to put it up by the MegaSquirt page as it seemed to be to be a biased representation of the truth. The articles intention is to give a brief summary of what FreeEMS is all about. AFTER I put up the article I noticed the traffic generated by it, not before. This is a positive thing for both development (more talent arriving and contributing) and for those that need such a system and don't want to be nailed down with dodgy licensing and/or pay a fortune. I've spent a bunch of my own cash on the site and dev gear, not to mention a huge amount of time on code and I am asking nothing in return. I think calling it "advertising" is being somewhat naive.
  
  Additionally, there is an article missing which would complete the set of 3. The article missing is VEMS which should be up to provide a balanced view from all sides. I could probably do a fair job of starting such an article, but true VEMS people would need to finish the job. You should note this is a direct competitor to VEMS and MegaSquirt (both commercial products) and I don't support VEMS or MegaSquirt, but I do think there is a need for more information more readily available about VEMS. Fredio54 21/8/2008 3:30 AM NZST —Preceding undated comment was added at 15:30, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• comment whether you want to call it advertising or evangelism, the essence is that the intention is the promotion of a product. That the product is free of cost and/or free of licensing encumberments is irrelevant. You might want to review WP:ADS. -- Whpq (talk) 17:32, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Once more, you obviously missed it : "I was originally inspired to put it up by the MegaSquirt page as it seemed to be to be a biased representation of the truth. The articles intention is to give a brief summary of what FreeEMS is all about. AFTER I put up the article I noticed the traffic generated by it, not before." effectively it assists people find out about something they are interested in in a non-technical encyclopedic way. Surely the point of an encyclopedia is to provide information about topics in a comprehensible way? That's what the wikipedia docs seem to say anyway... Fredio54 (talk) 17:40, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - fair enough, your intention wasn't promotional, I retract any statement about advertising. -- Whpq (talk) 18:00, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Thank you for being reasonable. Sometimes that is hard to find on the internet! :-) Fredio54 (talk) 18:07, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - While FreeEMS might not be that widely recognized project at this point I feel claiming it as non-notable isn't fair. Quick search finds several EFI related forums where Fred posted his original announcement for first public release earlier this year. Those threads have vast amount of both positive and negative comments. Many people with criticizing comments didn't at first understand it's not just about creating another EMS/ECU/EFI, it's about creating one truly open both hardware and software wise which is something that has never been done before. Many earlier projects that started open such as Megasquirt and VEMS have gone to for-profit business since. This has been possible due murky licensing. FreeEMS is GNU GPL / TAPR OHL licensed to prevent such faith.
  
  I also bit wonder what are requirements for being reliable source. I can see how projects own webpages and forums often can be biased. However as I mentioned there's discussions on various third party forums and blogs have more critical content. Neither FreeEMS / DIYEFI.ORG admins nor their friends have control over these medias.
  
  There's also already several versions of released code. I admit it's still far from complete plug-and-play setup but this is supposed to be DIY, not PNP. Given speed both software and hardware is currently improving this project is going to generate quite some interest in near future and become easier to use. Eventually someone will likely start selling kits as well - which is fully allowed under license unlike with current "free" EMS's.
  
  Causes for deletion decision on Wikipedia's side are "non-notable project; not in release, no external sources, no real notability claim". Non-notable - false. Not in release - false. No external sources - depends on if forums can be considered external sources or not. Otherwise there's very little information from third parties currently available. No real notability claim - dunno. I doubt proper solution is to setup bunch of links to diyefi.org advertising FreeEMS. While someone could use such approach at least I feel it would be cheating system to gain unfair advantage. (Johan, 20.8.2008 14:54)

—Preceding undated comment was added at 08:30, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

• Keep There is a difference between notability and widespread knowledge; developmental material is available immediately, and the source is the actual development forum. The original deletion proposer has made article deletion a hobby of his. Grounds for deletion are his own opinions and biased toward deletion.Koivusalo (talk) 15:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most of the above keeps are from people involved or interested in the project. I am involved in a lot of deletions, but I don't think I try to delete things that don't deserve it. I'm not an admin, I just propose things for deletion and other people agree or disagree. Mostly the articles I propose for deletion end up getting deleted; I think I have a pretty good sense of what is an appropriate article and what isn't. Brianyoumans (talk) 17:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "I think I have a pretty good sense of what is an appropriate article and what isn't." - I don't :-) I was looking through some of them earlier... Fredio54 (talk) 17:21, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment - I'd like to add that the only reason the auto delete thing didn't occur is that an interested wiki reader signed to the forum and PMed me about the deletion. That user benefited from the presence of the page which seems to me to be the point of the wiki, ie, to help people find out about things that interest them. That wiki users comment was this : "In case you haven't noticed some Wikipedia admins don't think this is serious project and are going to delete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeEMS page tomorrow (18th).
  
  Anyway I think you're doing great work on FreeEMS. I've spent countless hours during last two days reading posts on forum.". If he hadn't done that it would have vanished without the opportunity to discuss it here. That IMO is not on as most people don't visit every page they are interested in every week and some other users who do may not comprehend what the page is about in full especially if it not of interest to them. Fredio54 (talk) 18:41, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just to clarify: things don't 'auto-delete'. The article would have been deleted by an admin, who would have looked at the article and made their own decision about deletion. So, in addition to everyone who might have encountered the article over 5 days, at least two people would have to agree on deletion for it to occur. Brianyoumans (talk) 20:27, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • So that we are on the same playing field here, people might benefit from looking at WP:NOTE, and perhaps WP:NOT, particularly WP:SOAP. Brianyoumans (talk) 20:34, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "So that we are on the same playing field here" - that's funny Brian, I didn't think this was a game... Thanks for the links, but I for one had already read them all. Fredio54 (talk) 21:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep -

I have been heavily involved in electronics and engine tuning for about 15 years. I got into a so called open source solution to learn more about engine management from a DIY aspect for my own needs. I wanted a lot more flexibility, and quite frankly I was unprepared to wait for the next incarnation, that in my opinion will probably be just as restricted and more expensive than the originals.

I searched for DIY EMS on Google and hit the Wiki pages first because Wiki has always struck me as unbiased and generally accurate source of information. Since then I have been involved on the DIYEFI.org forums designing hardware, producing schematics for PCB layouts, sourcing components and obtaining quotes for professionally made PCB's, using my professional contacts to assist this project become something everyone can be proud of. The positive contributions by all the members is going towards producing a system that is built from the ground up using a superb and pretty future proof Microcontroller family with plenty of scope for what us engineers and hobbyists do best.

The schematics and code are available for all to see, as will many variants of PCB overlays designed modularly for true adaptability for adding your own touches, preferences or requirements to make an engine management system that is suited to all our needs not that of a couple of people wanting to sell you the bare minimum with limited scope for development.

There are many members of the forum that have invested serious time money and effort into this project, we know what the goal is, there is light at the end of the tunnel and with that level of determination and broad range of skills and experience we will not see it fail. We have never met face to face and we all live in different countries different time zones and yet we have achieved so much already. How can that be be classed as non noteworthy? what ever happened to freedom of speech? and freedom of free information?

FreeEMS......One hell of a co-operative effort that I am proud to be part of! Davebmw (talk) 21:56, 20 August 2008 (UTC) — Davebmw (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]

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.