Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Refbase: Difference between revisions

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

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I’m working on the unreferenced articles backlog. I can’t seem to find any significant coverage in secondary reliable sources on this specific program. Uncommon for such subjects, as there’s usually some sort of technical book discussing it, but not in this case. There’s several books that use it in programming, but nothing actually discussing it. I’ve done a search across multiple formats and reference databases, but I can’t find any coverage. This looks to be a WP:GNG failure. Silverseren^C 03:23, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Silver seren There’s an article by Lambert Heller (published in 2007 in a German journal, fulltext) which discusses refbase as one of the first open source software solutions for collaborative reference management. refbase was also integrated by other tools such as the German search platform beluga & PIRA, discussed in academic theses (e.g. by P.J.Cobb, M.Thummala & X.Wan+T.Wang) and used worldwide as an institutional publication repository (e.g. CVC, ISCRAM, IFIC, SLN, ISMMS & VetSRev). Matthias Steffens (talk) 14:56, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There’s also a thesis (by S.Bugla) that mainly deals with refbase as a base for their implementation, and there are various publications & academic papers that briefly mention refbase (e.g. Wilkinson+Collins 2007, Bahadoran et al. 2020 & Jimenez et al. 2022). Matthias Steffens (talk) 17:08, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Only your first link is really usable. The others are Master’s theses projects, as you noted, which aren’t generally considered proper for notability and meeting GNG. Mentions and usage in other places isn’t going to meet significant coverage. If there’s just the one piece of coverage, maybe Refbase is better discussed in a short paragraph in another higher level article, rather than on its own? Silverseren^C 23:09, 3 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Could this be an earlier version of the program? [3], it’s from 1989, but seems to be about the same type of thing, a bibliography maker. Oaktree b (talk) 20:55, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I don’t believe so. I think Refbase is just not a really unique name to use in this specific topic area. Silverseren^C 21:03, 10 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete: I can only consider one source (the German one) as sufficient. I can’t find anything extra. Not enough sourcing to show notability. Oaktree b (talk) 00:15, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  As discussed by the author of the German article, refbase and refDB were the first web-based open-source tools to facilitate collaborative reference management, so there’s also a historical significance of these tools. Isn’t this one of the criteria described by WP:SOFT for software notability? Thank you. Matthias Steffens (talk) 14:03, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  That doesn’t seem to be a policy or guideline page, but a Wikiproject essay. And “presumed notability” is used on Wikipedia to mean that the article still must meet the WP:GNG, but that it is more likely an article will meet it if it also meets the listed criteria. That doesn’t really apply at this point, because we are currently doing the exhaustive search for sources to see if that presumption pans out or not. Thus far, the sources seem to say not. Silverseren^C 22:38, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep The first paper linked has been published(Institutional Repositories Software for Digital Libraries in the Digital Environment). There is a second German paper mentioned above. Refbase was also mentioned in these papers[4][5]. Some coverage in this magazine.Kelob2678 (talk) 09:56, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Passes WP:SIGCOV. In addition to the sources identified by Kelob2678, this book has significant coverage: Coombs, Karen A; Hollister, Amanda J (2010). “Refbase”. Open Source Web Applications for Libraries. Information Today, Inc. pp. 180–183. I’d say two journal articles with substantial coverage (the others are nominal mentions), a magazine review, and a book with a designated section to the topic are enough to pass WP:GNG.4meter4 (talk) 12:46, 18 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]