Wikipedia:Peer review/DC++/archive1

DC++

I'm interested in getting feedback about the article on DC++ here at Wikipedia. Of particular interest is how to best address (or not) the list of DC++ based software that has grown into the article. I'm not sure what the notability guidelines say about software, but I think the number of end users, if nothing else, of each derivative may be small. I don't think the method of covering forks helps readers. The article may also benefit from some more defined sections, which would in turn allow expansion of the text. (In interests of disclosure, I am closely associated with DC++, and I have edited the article, keeping WP:NPOV and WP:COI in mind.) --GargoyleMT 21:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Comments by Verisimilus

• Could the lede be made more concise and encyclopaedic? For example, I'd remove 'A partial list of DC++ mods is given below..
• The article reads in places like a technical specification of manual. I didn't expect the first paragraph of the body to be on the support of addresses...
• There are a lot of low-content lists. See WP:LISTS for details on the manual of style's advice.

My personal approach would be to list only the names of major mods, with a note on its distinguishing features. As a non-DC expert, I can't currently see what sets those mods apart as interesting from an encyclopaedic perspective. Yes, they're useful if I want to decide which mod to download, but not if I'm interested in the software from an academic point of view. See WP:NOT.

• The information in the article is poorly distributed. Check out the WP:LEDE guidelines and consider including information on the origin of the program, controversies over its use in illegal media-sharing, and an explanation of what it does. I consider myself something of a geek but had I not encountered the program myself, I'd have difficulty working out what it was - what is a hub? a mod? even the term client is unfamiliar, I'd suggest, to a significant proportion of the population.

To summarise, this article would be improved most effectively by incorporating a sense of development - the first section introducing the computer-illiterate, perhaps the next providing a history, the next maybe its notability (controversies, width of use, use in DOS attacks), and then a short section detailing any technical specifications you'd expect to find in an encyclopaedia, with perhaps a short list of mods appended.

In answer to your mod question, I suppose I'd follow the line that if the mod merits its own page, create it and provide details there - but if it does not differ sufficiently from DC++, then it's probably not worth mentioning as anything more than an external link.

I hope that's helpful, and it is of course simply my personal views... Verisimilus T 23:08, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The following comments have been copied from my talk page for ease of access. Verisimilus T

Thanks for your feedback about the article on DC++. It is appreciated, especially the specificity of the comments. The project (and the entire DC network) has been largely low-profile, with few news articles about it. I'll see what I can do without engaging in too much original research. As a side note, some of the DC++ offshoots have had their own project pages (ex: StrongDC, BCDC++), but were merged back in due to notability concerns. (I'm not sure if this is supposed to go on the peer review page, but I won't be able to give the article the attention it deserves for at least a couple of days, and acknowledging your review of it is paramount.) --GargoyleMT 14:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

My pleasure. Perhaps it would be appropriate to create a section in this article to describe each of the projects that once had their own page - if the sections would have enough content to justify their inclusion, anyway. Verisimilus T 14:31, 24 June 2007 (UTC)