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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/IOS version history (2nd nomination)

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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 keep. There is an overwhelming consensus to keep, however participants happened to make it to this discussion. There is also an expectation raised by such participation that efforts will be made to improve the encyclopedic substance of the article. BD2412 T 03:10, 27 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IOS version history

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AfDs for this article:

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IOS version history (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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This article goes against current wikipedia policy on titled : What Wikipedia is not in specfic section it states that wikipedia is not a change log.

WP:NOT

WP:NOTCHANGELOG. 1keyhole (talk) 00:58, 17 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting per DRV result, see Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2023 April#26 April 2023.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Isabelle Belato 🏳‍🌈 16:40, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep per all above. Any concerns involving WP:NOTCHANGELOG can be addressed via cleanup rather than deletion. Please see WP:SURMOUNTABLE. Frank Anchor 17:51, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: per the reasons provided by Aoidh Jack4576 (talk) 18:03, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep per Aoidh reasoning, and the fact that i have put significant effort personally into making the overviews far less exhaustive. yes WP:NOTCHANGELOG exists but it specifically applies to exhaustive changelogs. If effort can be put in to condense the overviews (as seen with the entirety of the iOS 12 section where one line sentences are used instead of an exhaustive overview for each release), there is no valid reason why I can fathom voting delete on this article, especially not after the amount of time that has passed and the significant amount of time and effort that has been put into this article. I honestly believe the previous closure per WP:SNOW pre-relist was the right move here, same as with the previous nomination. Topic itself is notable, and receives significant coverage as well, people just need to start citing what they add. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 18:21, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
And @1keyhole, WP:NOTCHANGELOG states that articles should not be exhaustive change logs of software updates. Theres nothing wrong with having version history articles so long as they aren't significantly verbose or list every little change or bug fix made to a version and only list the most notable changes with significant sourcing (as it is correct in that Wikipedia should not be a comprehensive changelog, for that people can view the official release notes or if a piece of software is immensely popular but is open source, the git commit log) and that can be done with the iOS version history article. I honestly suggest withdrawing this AfD nomination due to the sheer amount of edits that have been made since this AfD was listed, including the removal of device codes along with build numbers and codenames from the tables, not to mention significant effort was made on my part so far to reduce the exhaustiveness of the feature overviews to where the article went from over 318,000 bytes to slightly above 277,000 bytes. This article has genuinely been valuable to a lot of people as well, and while saying this results in WP:ITSPOPULAR or WP:ITSUSEFUL being applied, it is clear that it is an encyclopedic article, as its not just tables, its also prose (and the prose can be expanded to be more encyclopedic as well), and like I mentioned it is a significantly notable topic - there are a lot of publications that cover every iOS release, including the patch releases. This article also receives a significant amount of pageviews. Therefore I am re-inforcing my keep. Listing an article for deletion basically implies that an article can not be improved. You are severely misinterpreting the policy by saying that Wikipedia is not a changelog, however that is not what the policy states. It states that Wikipedia is not an exhaustive changelog, and that if articles do focus on it, to provide singificant sourcing and common sense to the amount of detail that should be included in articles. This AfD is a genuine misinterpretation of WP:NOTCHANGELOG. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 18:45, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep Notable and content too large to fit on iOS article. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 18:42, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    This is not a reason for keeping (the original reason for deletion had nothing to do with notability, and the proposal is that the content be deleted entirely, not merged). * Pppery * it has begun... 03:52, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep With over 200 references, many GNG quality, and a very clear and concise, well formatted article, this is a keep. And it's been snowing for weeks. Reversing the close at DRV and relisting it yet again, was a poor decision, given the snow; seems to be a case where IAR was called for, so as not to waste people's time with the needless relist. Nfitz (talk) 22:24, 13 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep without the tables, as a valid summary article of subarticles such iPhone OS 1, iPhone OS 2, etc. * Pppery * it has begun... 03:52, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep: Agreed with all editors involved. CastJared (talk) 14:33, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to "History of iOS" without tables. Version history articles are an invitation to unencyclopedic completionist cruft documenting every release. A broader history article would focus the content on only the major changes that received coverage in mainstream independent media. JoelleJay (talk) 15:20, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @JoelleJay: No they aren't? There are very few people who edit the article, and those who do are aware of Wikipedia policy. Users who aren't and add unnecessary content can always have their edits reverted. But killing off the tables would a) be catastrophic to this article's popularity in the first place and b) would severely impact the historical value of this article. Not to mention the vast majority of the article's sources are contained within the tables. There is nothing wrong with having the tables exist so long as the overviews within the tables aren't exhaustive (e.g. listing all features, improvements and bug fixes in an iOS release). And the whole "this is an invitation to unencyclopedic completionist cruft" is downright nonsense. The tables are severely valuable and notable, per Wikipedia guidelines. People have found immense use in this article's content, e.g. quickly learning about the changes in each iOS version (including the minor ones as those typically include a few new features that the major release doesn't include due to more time needed to bake them in the oven), without having to go through a billion pages or archived websites to find out. I for one have found this article to be severely useful, and it's why I've sunk so much time into editing it. You may have your opinion, but it's outright wrong and is additionally downright insulting to people with the whole "invitation" remark. That is straight up just rude and isn't how the majority of Wikipedia editors behave in my personal experience. You need to take into consideration the sheer amount of time this article has existed for and just how many people have found this information useful within that time period. Otherwise you're saying a significant piece of history should be deleted from Wikipedia purely based on "invitations" and "what ifs". - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 15:34, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    They clearly are not aware of/care about wikipedia policy if deleting copyvio tables results in massive canvassing campaigns. That some people for whatever reason find version history tables useful and more convenient than other formats, or that they have existed for so long, or that people have worked hard on maintaining them, is not a reason to keep manifestly non-encyclopedic content. Take it to a version history wikia. JoelleJay (talk) 15:57, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    the copyright violations were removed months ago when the tables were originally reinstated, and i am trying to remove all of the long feature overviews from the tables to only highlight the most important changes. prose is not always the best format for an article, which is why tables are supported on wikipedia to begin with, and why list-class articles are allowed on wikipedia too per its policies. also, fandom is not a proper alternative to wikipedia. i don't know why you take such issue with tables, but aside from the long feature overviews for iOS 5 / iOS 4 for example, this article does not violate wikipedia's changelog policy on exhaustiveness in terms of changelogs. you have no valid ground for suggesting a prose-only article when tables are severely useful. and arguably this is encyclopedic because it is comprehensively sourced and notable as a topic. you are misinterpreting wikipedia policies into something they aren't. if the tables aren't exhaustive, and on top of the tables, the article also has a lot of prose, then how does this make the article non encyclopedic?! i fundamentally disagree with your reasoning, joelle. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 17:56, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as-is – the article fundamentally is just a changelog with some window dressing, so WP:NOTCHANGELOG is still engaged here. Any article along these lines that could possibly be compliant with NOTCHANGELOG would probably be too short as a standalone endeavour; in which case, the content would be much better off diffused between iOS and the other articles. Second option would be to draftily so that a History of iOS article can be drafted and eventually moved back into mainspace once that work is done. Sceptre (talk) 20:53, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sceptre: you are misinterpreting what WP:NOTCHANGELOG is. It only defines "exhaustiveness", not that a version history article straight up can't exist, or have tables detailing the major features in bullet point or sentence form. Having tables with three columns and only major feature highlights, does not violate that policy, therefore your comment is a bt redundant. Like I mentioned, the iOS 4 / iOS 5 tables are excessively verbose as are some others, but if need be those tables whose' specific overviews are too verbose can simply be emptied and replaced with more condese highlights. But merely having these tables does not violate the policy. See iOS version history#iOS 12 and what i did with that table, as an example. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 21:32, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - People need to read what WP:NOTCHANGELOG ACTUALLY says instead of interpreting it into their own definition before they vote. It only mentions exhaustiveness and that common sense should be used on the amount of detail to include. It does NOT outright ban these types of articles, nor does it ban the tables from existing. The article does have some severe comprehensive detail issues, especially on certain tables like iOS 4 and iOS 5, but those issues can be rectified through edits. From what I can sense from the policy, it implies to not excessively detail each and every change made to a software version, e.g. listing the entire release notes, like what was previously done when Apple's release notes were downright copied and pasted. So I am saying that people need to use common sense themselves and stop merely reading the policy shortlink alone and coming to some untrue conclusion as to what the policy actually means. Additionally, this is my last comment on this AfD, unless I'm replied to, but I will refrain from defending my stance further in any new votes, because my stance is already severely clear, and will instead suggest people to just actually read what the redirect's target says before voting. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 21:44, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Sceptre and as possible copyvio. The article is an enormous list of changelog minutia, including over 300 instances of some variation of "bug fixes". There's no assertion that each individual update is notable and there's substantial worry that the reams and reams of text reproducing the patch notes in detail constitute a copyright violation per Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:13, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Each individual update of iOS is extensively covered by several publications and have been extensively covered for a long time - while yes some are focused on Apple, they are still editorially independent, such as MacRumors. See here, here, and here as examples for 16.4.1. And that is just one example. There is no argument of lack of notability here. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 16:57, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    @Axem Titanium: And with regards to paraphrasing, that can be fixed, but there is no copyright violations from what I've found in the text anymore as the copyright violations were fixed ages ago, so there is no argument for copyvio either and whenever I've modified the text I've made sure to steer clear of copyvio. If necessary the "bug fix" text can be removed, but individual iOS versions are significantly notable in that they receive extensive coverage, even for point releases and beta releases. I don't see how any of this is a proper argument to delete. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 17:05, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    At the time of my above comment, there were line items in the tables such as "Allows Siri to search personal photos and videos based on dates, locations, album names, etc." (from the ios9 table), which is a very close paraphrasing of the original text, "Siri improvements: Search your personal photos and videos based on dates, locations and album names" [1]. Now that (most of) the tables have been removed, there's less worry of that. I would continue to urge caution in any tables (including the still remaining tables for ios12 and ios16) that summarize sub-version numbers because they often become WP:COATRACKs for eager but misguided driveby editors to add copyvio text out of convenience. It's good that this AFD was relisted so necessary improvements can take place, instead of just another 'keep' result and leaving the article in desperate need of cleanup. Axem Titanium (talk) 20:36, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I am a heavy editor for the page, if anyone adds copyvio, it will be removed on sight, but as iOS 12's support has ended, there's no reason to believe that anything more will happen to that table. The reason the iOS 12 and iOS 16 tables are still there, is because I went through the effort to entirely rewrite the tables (for iOS 12 at least) to be more condense and to avoid any potential copyvio. I did originally remove the iOS 12 table as well, but that was before I remembered that I entirely rewrote that table. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 21:25, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    The remaining tables are absolutely pointless and contain little to no encyclopedic information. Please seek consensus on the talk page to include, per WP:ONUS, rather than repeatedly reinstate them as you have. Listing minor security updates serves no point. For other examples, see Xbox system software, PlayStation 4 system software and other articles by the far better organized WP:WikiProject Video games, which used to contain this cruft, yet were removed years ago, contrary to the belief that changelog removals are a recent phenomenon. Here's how they used to look (and more). Those were all fixed in 2015, and the pages are better off for it. The WP:COMPUTING changelogs were only overlooked because the WikiProject is semi-dead.
    I've said it elsewhere, but changelogs are only useful when they're verbatim (how do we know which changes readers are looking for?) yet we obviously can't host verbatim changelogs here. There's no point in keeping any of this, when our changelogs can never be as accurate or as "useful" as any company's official changelogs. This whole debate is frankly becoming a waste of time that could be spend on improving 'proper' articles. Also please avoid WP:BLUDGEONing discussions like this. DFlhb (talk) 09:25, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Consensus was already previously reached to keep the tables - you and one other editor were the ones who kept removing them despite the previous consensus to keep. Therefore, you have no valid ground to bring consensus into this. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 11:49, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    As one more note (and then I'll leave the discussion until I get replied to), sentences detailing features, and features alone, does not constitute a change log. I have been around a long time (well, not that long, only since the start of the century plus that wording makes me feel old even though I'm not) and have followed the software world a long time, a change log is a complete and comprehensive list of all changes made to a specific version of software, it is not a list of major features only. therefore you are additionally misunderstanding what a change log even is. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 11:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep: Agreed with all editors involved. Many release notes may be forever lost and this article kept up with them as they came out. The updates and their notes are notable in their own right, and may be forever lost if this page was deleted or worse. Urbanracer34 (talk) 17:30, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep without the tables, per Pppery. A minor annoyance has turned into a major headache that we can do without. Since popularity/usefulness was again brought up, I'll just note that the tables were fully removed for a while, resulting in no dip in the article's page views. Not that pageviews ever matters anyway, but there's no reason to think people are coming here to learn what happened in iPhone OS 2.0.1. DFlhb (talk) 09:26, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment regarding the tables - All the tables aside from the iOS 16 one have been removed, due to them not being that high quality, or adequately sourced. However, the iOS 16 table has been kept as I just worked really hard to improve both the sourcing and the wording of that table. But, I do believe that if work is put in, the tables for the other iOS versions can be added with reliable sourcing that meets WP:GNG, WP:NCORP and any other policy or guideline that may relate to high quality sources for Wikipedia articles, along with WP:CHANGELOG. With this being said, it is best that I step aside from this discussion now, to let it play out and finish, however I'll probably still reply to anyone that replies to me. And the iOS 12 subsection was also recently improved to detail some of the features iOS 12 added, to serve as a sort of summary for that version. But summaries like these are IMHO a bit inadequate as Apple releases a lot of minor versions for their software during a major version's release cycle, to where those changes mentioned in iOS 12 are barely a fraction of what has been added, especially with the minor versions also adding features. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 12:54, 17 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per WP:CHANGELOG. If you actually read the policy, this is what the section says: "Common sense must be applied regarding the level of detail to include." It does not say that articles about version history must be deleted, or even that they should be deleted. That is not some kind of accidental oversight. The original discussion which led to this being put into WP:NOT was explicitly and unanimously in favor of writing a policy that would preserve Android version history; it seems somewhere between confusing and perverse that this same policy would be later interpreted as requiring its deletion! Note additionally the agreed-on proposals from that discussion: "This will still effectively ban changelogs for minor software packages, but allow significant changes in more notable software to be included." and "Remove the ban on tables." While I don't have a particularly strong opinion about whether the tables stay or go (it seems like you could express the same content just as well either way), the idea that "WP:NOTCHANGELOG says to delete version history articles" or "WP:NOTCHANGELOG says to delete tables" is simply not true. jp×g 00:55, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep This page provides a unique overview of the release history of iOS. I also use it to decide when, and if to upgrade to a new version. For example, I always wait for the first, or even the second patch release before considering upgrade to the latest major release. This is to avoid most of the bugs and security vulnerabilities present in new versions. This page is very useful in keeping track of this information.HenrikS01 (talk) 09:59, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but heavily edit and change the title - There are many "it's useful", "it's important" votes above that should be discarded. Is it possible to re-write this article to be something that isn't a change-log? I would say probably yes, but in that case the title should probably change too because a "version history" is always going to be just a change-log in nature. My suggestion would be Development of iOS similarly to the featured article Development of Grand Theft Auto V. We would still need to show a pass of WP:CORP because this is an article entirely dedicated to a product/service of an organisation, but I think we have that based on the WSJ and NYT sources which should get us over WP:AUD and WP:ORGIND. FOARP (talk) 10:20, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    There is already a history section on the IOS article. 1keyhole (talk) 10:30, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Which links to this page for further context, which it really does not deliver. If the development history of iOS is not sufficiently notable and has sufficient contextual information about it to sustain a page written in language comprehensible to the average person on the street in any part of the world (which is the audience we are supposed to be writing for) then this page should be deleted, but I think that is unlikely to be the case. We need a history of the development of iOS, not a changelog. I'm not ruling out that tables could be part of that but they need to be delivered in context, and the story told in better format that what is basically WP:PROSELINE beginning every paragraph with "Apple announced...". FOARP (talk) 10:39, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No offense but please cease commenting on every single AfD related to this policy. You are not letting fresh perspectives be heard and to be honest you are not helping. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 12:30, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure who you are responding to here Evelyn. I don't believe I have !voted on every AFD related to WP:NOTCHANGELOG or WP:CORP? FOARP (talk) 13:26, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This has been my primary place for checking details about new releases. I also like the revision where each major version has a list of releases: all in one place in collapsable sections. Someone seems to edit and move them elsewhere which I don't like. George Valkov (talk) 18:47, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - While precedents about what to include or exclude are useful, we should not be tone deaf or mechanistic to eliminate articles of very high popularity or utility, of which this is one. Carrite (talk) 15:20, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, rename, and stubify with the expectation that the passionate !voters above are willing to write an encyclopedic treatment of the subject. History of iOS would be an appropriate article to provide a prose description cited to secondary sources about the history of iOS, which would then by summarized in a few paragraphs at iOS#History and expanded upon in each individual iOS version article. Currently, iOS version history is mostly an unsourced prosified list that gives a blow by blow account of updates and features, which is not what we do here. I'm also assuming that the closer will WP:DISCARD all of the !votes from WP:SPAs and all of those that are based solely on whether it is WP:USEFUL. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:28, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Most of the unsourced prose is hardware support, which can be removed as it's far better presented in a table than in prose. It's already mostly covered by the first table, and if people want comprehensive detail, the now-removed hardware support tables can always be brought back. DFlhb (talk) 22:18, 25 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep There is no valid reason to remove or mangle this article other than pedantry and being a nuisance to other users. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. AfDs and the people who propose them are why I hate interacting with Wikipedia. Loknar (talk) 11:11, 26 May 2023 (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.
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