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. The history may be restored on request if a viable merge or redirect target is identified. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:30, 2 January 2023 (UTC) reply

BackSlash Linux

BackSlash Linux (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log | edits since nomination)

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Article fails WP:GNG and WP:NSOFT. Article was previously deleted in November 2016 and was recreated about eight months later in July 2017. The sources in the article are still not enough to meet WP:GNG and since the distro is now discontinued it is unlikely to get additional coverage in the future. Sources in the article amount to primary non-independent sources and blogs, none of which contribute to the notability of the subject, and I couldn't find anything online showing notability. GBooks and Scholar show absolutely nothing either. Aoidh ( talk) 16:10, 4 December 2022 (UTC) reply

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Software and India. Aoidh ( talk) 16:10, 4 December 2022 (UTC) reply
• Merge and redirect to List of Linux distributions. Backslash Linux is already listed there (releases named after Disney characters from Frozen!), but we could add a few more facts with sources. I found one plausible piece of SIGCOV (though it relies heavily on an interview with the subject), which was the December 2017 article in Open Source ForYou magazine (available in Gale OneFile and here via ProQuest. Please ping me if help is needed with this minor merge. Cielquiparle ( talk) 11:34, 7 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Longstanding consensus at Talk:List of Linux distributions is that the entries listed there very specifically must have a standalone article for inclusion; without a standalone article its entry would be removed so merging there is not feasible. Interviews are not independent so that does not contribute to notability in any way. - Aoidh ( talk) 17:12, 7 December 2022 (UTC) reply

It doesn't look like there is much meaningful activity on the List of Linux distributions page recently. Maybe it's time to revisit the policy, allow distributions that aren't independently notable to be listed (as long as there is at least one source) and clean up the page, which is need of an update? Otherwise there might be other merge targets like Debian which has a couple of different sections for forks and derivatives. Cielquiparle ( talk) 17:40, 7 December 2022 (UTC) reply

That the list has maintenance tags on it does not mean the inclusion criteria should be relaxed by any means. That list page is quite long enough as it is, but that would be a consensus to try to change on that page not here, so unless that criteria changes, that's not a merge option. BackSlash Linux is also not in any way meaningful to Debian or its development, so a merge there would be even more inappropriate and WP:UNDUE; the amount of coverage that BackSlash Linux has received in relation to Debian is zero, so the Debian article should include zero content about it. As far as I am aware there's no valid merge target for this article and it does not meet Wikipedia's notability requirements to warrant a standalone article. - Aoidh ( talk) 18:48, 7 December 2022 (UTC) reply

• Comment - Just to comment on the recently added references to the article, the Linux.com piece was written by the developer of BackSlash Linux, so it's not an independent source. The Linux Journal article is a trivial mention that mentions the distro in a sentence that references this source, which also is a trivial mention. I had seen all of these sources before nominating the article for deletion but none of them contribute to the notability of the subject. - Aoidh ( talk) 23:14, 8 December 2022 (UTC) reply

  Just so it's clear – that source was already there in the article – I just edited the text and cleaned up the formatting – but yes, very interesting that the author of the Linux.com article was or became involved in BackSlash Linux development, given the somewhat critical review and the text (which I had removed) that was calling out the coverage. Cielquiparle ( talk) 08:06, 19 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, KSAWikipedian ( talk) 07:10, 12 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:16, 19 December 2022 (UTC) reply

• Delete, the article relies heavily on primary sources and other non-reputable sources whilst not meeting WP:GNG alongside being established that it is likely to get more coverage due to its discontinuation. Given the above discussion over it not being appropriate to merge and redirect to the the list of linux distributions page, the most appropriate action is to delete. Carolina2k22 • (talk) • (edits) 05:13, 19 December 2022 (UTC) reply
• Redirect to List of Linux distributions. Understand that this deletion discussion isn't the right place to change the inclusion policy for List of Linux distributions, and that that discussion needs to happen on the Talk page over there; in the meantime, I've gone ahead and added some information about Backslash Linux to the entry over there. Having taken a closer look, it looks like a lot of the distributions listed on that page might not survive current Wikipedia notability guidelines and may no longer be able to justify having standalone Wikipedia pages, so it may make sense to have that discussion over there in the near future. Cielquiparle ( talk) 08:10, 19 December 2022 (UTC) reply

That's not a viable redirect target; without a standalone article the entry on BackSlash Linux would be removed from List of Linux distributions per consensus on how entries are listed there, and it doesn't make sense to redirect to an article that doesn't include anything about what's being redirected. I do think maybe a few more entries listed there wouldn't survive an AfD, but that's a discussion for those individual AfDs. - Aoidh ( talk) 21:50, 19 December 2022 (UTC) reply

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Final relist to see if there are any other possible Redirect or Merge targets as that is result some participants want but there hasn't been a viable target identified yet.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:41, 26 December 2022 (UTC) 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.