Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Windows Vista/1

Windows Vista[edit]

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page

Result: Delist for multiple failings of the criteria. Geometry guy 21:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delist - The Reception section seems to be written by a Mac user, showing an obvious bias against Vista. According to Microsoft, Vista has sold over 100 million copies, far ahead of Mac OS X Leopard. This is a clear violation of section 4 of the GA criteria. ANDROS¹³³⁷ 18:11, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delist. The Reception section includes synthesis, such as Many computer manufacturers are shipping Windows XP restore disks along with new computers with Vista Business and Ultimate editions pre-installed, possibly to help small to mid-sized businesses[108] for a limited time[109], as well as new computers with XP or Linux pre-installed. Really. Footnote #109 refers only to Lenovo, not to "Many manufacturers". Other in-line citations refer to relatively weak sources, such as ChangeWave, which is, IMO, marginally reliable. The articles editors can - and should - do better, considering the sheer amount of coverage the topic has received. Majoreditor (talk) 19:31, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The person proposing the delisting appears to want us to go against the preponderance of reliable sources available on the topic because 100+ million sounds like a very large number compared to its competitor. A fair assessment, sure, but the reality is that the overall reception of Vista has been fairly poor, and the article covers this. Sure, the wording can be just a little bit better but that's why this is a "good" article, not a "featured" article. Warren -talk- 00:22, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Not according to Microsoft. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer states that Vista sales are good, and there is no denying that. The article is very selective in only using sources that negatively review Vista. A clear violation of WP:NPOV. It seems that you only want to keep it as a GA because you are a Mac user. ANDROS¹³³⁷ 16:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  - Comment - In regards to the sales figures, the 100 million number includes mostly consumer sales of new computers. What the Balmer quote leaves out is that upgrade versions and corporate sales have been lackluster at best, according to most computer tech sites and magazines. Additionally, the company includes sales of PCs that were downgraded to XP from Vista as Vista sales, even if they were never used as Vista machines. His quote is a classic example of "there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics." made by Mark Twain. BTW, I am a A+ certified computer tech and work on and build PCs as a hobby and am neither here nor there on Macs. Vista has serious issues that will not be addressed until the next version of Windows in 2009-2010, these need to be included in the article.--Jeremy ( Blah blah...) 20:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    - However, from what I have learned, Mac OS X Leopard has sold 10 million copies total. Do you SERIOUSLY think there are fewer than 10 million Vista users? Sounds like clear anti-Vista bias to me, which is a violation of WP:NPOV. ANDROS¹³³⁷ 21:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      - Comparing sales figures for the two doesn't make sense. Mac OS X, due to its licensing restrictions, is limited to specific hardware sold by a single vendor, and has been on sale since the end of October, 2007, whereas Microsoft started selling Windows Vista almost a full year earlier -- in November, 2006. Apple also doesn't sell into the corporate market, which is where Microsoft is getting a large percentage of their sales numbers from, particularly related to Software Assurance customers who automatically get Vista, whether they asked for it or not. Those numbers are included in Microsoft's sales figures, by the way.

There isn't a level playing field with which to do a simple numbers comparison. Satisfaction surveys are much more relevant, and the Windows Vista article covers this angle.

I suggest you stop arguing in favour giving undue weight to Mac OS X in the Windows Vista article, and I suggest you review WP:AGF before making comments like "You want it to stay a GA because you're a Mac user". That's a really fucking stupid comment to make, and you know it's not going to get you anywhere. I think the article deserves GA status, which it has had for almost two years, because it's one of the better articles Wikipedia has in terms of prose, sourcing, neutrality, completeness, and focus. Warren -talk- 23:39, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep - The "Reception" section does need to be revised, but the rest of the article is very well-written and well-deserving of the Good Article mark. Cedars (talk) 14:24, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps someone could take a crack at revising the "Reception" section. Anyone up to the challenge? Majoreditor (talk) 14:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the reception section can use some tweaking in Vista favor. To say Vista is a bad OS because you do not know how to use it or configure it is very bad analysis. I personally have used the OS for 1.5 years and it has not given one problem, not even spyware that plagued XP. Vista has had major improvements in security. Windows XP when first released was a target of major viruses such as blaster and sassir. Vista has had no major viruses and it has been out much longer than XP when it was attacked. The reason for the negative tilt is because most major news editors use Mac computers and there is a general popularity spike for Macs because of the huge success of iPods. Since many people buy iPods, kids will in many times buy Macs just to pair up with their iPod. Look, this does not really need to be mentioned in a Vista article. Put it in the Mac article that it has had a boost because of iPods --- get it? Vista is doing very well, but one reason it is not doing even better is because of the requirements. Corporate PCs have low-end graphics hardware and Vista has a 3D interface. Corporate IT admins know this and are not going to deploy Vista unless they order new computers. Another reason some business downgrade to XP is not because Vista is bad but because XP does the job and they want their users to have a familiar look and feel. Believe me, Vista is going to come around and it does not have to wait for the next version of Windows as so many say. It is more powerful, more stable, and performance does not degrade over time due to spyware. All of these things will cause Vista to become the standard OS, if not already considered standard. WinCEB (talk) 23:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for presenting facts in an honest, unbiased matter. ANDROS¹³³⁷ 19:28, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep While I agree with the problem that the article has, this would have been more suited to an effort and discussion that article. Revoking GA status is an overreach in this case As for all this argument about what vista is and isn't what it will become, just knock it off, please. The truth is it is not our job here to decide what will happen, only what is currently verifiable.--Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 17:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ideally the problems would be worked out on the article's talk pages. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. I've pointed out the synthesis issue, which is no small matter. In addition to that, several of the citations refer to less-than-reliable blogs. I've seen little action to resolve these issues during the last two weeks. It's time to delist the article. I hope that editors can work together to fix matters and then re-submit the article to GAN. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 12:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The majority of the article still meets the GA criteria. I agree that the Reception section has issues and I am attempting to fix them. As for ChangeWave, it appears in a Computerworld article, which is a reasonably reliable source; it is the first result in a Google search for "vista satisfaction survery". I have already removed the Lenovo reference and added a reference to Microsoft. — Wenli ^{(reply here)} 20:10, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delist per numerous cleanup tags, ^{[citation needed]} tags, citations that fail to give full attribution, and fair-use images that exceed the 300-pixel rule of thumb. As for content disputes, this is not the place to address and argue those issues: that's what the talk page is for. However, please note that those disputes did not precipitate my delist vote; there's other outstanding issues (mentioned above) that lead to my vote. Drewcifer (talk) 22:34, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delist. There is too material much uncited, the various cleanup tags haven't been dealt with, and I think the structure of the article is wanting. I'm not altogether eneamoured of the listy nature of this article, but I would at least have liked to see the various lists consistently formatted. I also think that the material covered could have been more selectively chosen—my eyes started to glaze over while reading the seemingly End-user features subsection. Most importantly though, I'm deeply unhappy about the neutrality of the Criticism and Reception sections. I'd like to see the critical material integrated into the appropriate places in the article, instead of gathered together for what looks like a parting shot. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:32, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. I can forgive 400 × 300 fair use images, but not 949 × 720. The heavy use of bulleted lists fails WP:EMBED. The lead does not summarize the article per WP:LEAD. Neutrality issues seem to have distracted editors from the basics. I suggest they forget about whether Vista or Leopard is best and switch to Ubuntu, which is updated every 6 months (not once in 5 years) and is completely free (in all senses of the word).</plug> :-) Geometry guy 22:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delist per the reception section; I see one short paragraph of positive commentary (from video gamers!) complete with 1 ref (except for the stuff that was followed by "XP did better"). I agree Vista sucks, but it can't be that bad (and for the record I'm a satisfied XP user). —Giggy 09:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delist: On its face, this is NOT a Good Article. Apparent by the 5 paragraph. Writing is a hodgepodge of styles, and has lots of grammar problems. Thanks to whoever for including the 'needs citations' and 'neutrality' templates; I'm not sure I needed these to see Big Examples of citationless, POV content, but don't these sort of provide a red-flag for a GAR? I'm afraid that a lot of the criticism above is about Vista, not the article itself, and I suggest that editors stick the Good Article Criteria for their assessments, and not start counting the number of Vista users to make a point. --Nemonoman (talk) 14:17, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]