Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yet Another Perl Conference

Yet Another Perl Conference

Yet Another Perl Conference (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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This article is unreferenced. From a Google search, I found no usable secondary sources about it. (Note: I found a number of Perl-related articles with these same notability issues. Because their subjects are still distinct and they were created by different editors, I chose not to WP:BUNDLE.) WikiFouf (talk) 04:02, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Events, Computing, and Software. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 04:21, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

So, The Python Conference page is also unreferenced? Instead of erasing the historical memory of tens of thousands of people who attended those events (I myself attended a couple), what needs to be done is to improve the article so that it has the same quality as the Python Conference page and those for other programming languages. The fact that there are no references to it on Google doesn't mean that there weren't numerous Perl fan pages recounting their experiences from those days. In fact, it's still being held. The last one was this year, in June. There are 125 articles that link to this page. And versions in three languages ​​(Spanish, French, and Dutch). JoaquinFerrero (talk) 20:30, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

I found a nice reference on The Perl Foundation's official website, which recounts the first 25 years. It explains how the conferences organized by the O'Reilly company (The O'Reilly Pearl Conference in 1997) would evolve into the OSCON conference, and later into the YAPC.

https://news.perlfoundation.org/post/the_first_twenty-five_years JoaquinFerrero (talk) 20:42, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

This is a blog post, which does not qualify for Wikipedia's standards for reliability. Please read WP: GNG. HyperAccelerated (talk) 02:36, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

It's a blog post from The Perl Foundation, a subject-matter expert. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:07, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

From the YAPC website (emphasis mine): "The Yet Another Perl Conferences (YAPCs) are grassroots symposia on the Perl programming language promoted by The Perl Foundation, a non-profit corporation dedicated to the advancement of the Perl programming language through open discussion, collaboration, design, and code. We also support other collaborative events such as Perl workshops and hackathons."

We don't know the editorial standards of TPF, but even if we did, this doesn't appear to be an independent source. A foundation supporting the conference would be more than willing to publish a piece singing praises about said conference. It doesn't meet the standard for WP: GNG on multiple counts. HyperAccelerated (talk) 01:42, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

Unless this historical memory appears in secondary sources, Wikipedia will absolutely erase it, regardless if the article is kept. Wikipedia is no place for publication of what was not published before. Regarding fan pages, these usually are not good sources, either. ~2025-41636-00 (talk) 11:52, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is maintained by volunteers. We owe you nothing. The PyCon page also has more than a dozen references; claiming that it's "unreferenced" is pure fiction. HyperAccelerated (talk) 02:35, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Exactly: the solution is to add References to this page, not delete it. Easy? JoaquinFerrero (talk) 15:16, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Evidently not, considering you've commented here three times without presenting a single source that establishes the subject's notability. HyperAccelerated (talk) 16:36, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Delete: Did a WP: BEFORE, found a couple small blurbs in books, but nothing that would be enough to write an article. HyperAccelerated (talk) 02:37, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Also, no opposition to a merge. No preference on merge target. HyperAccelerated (talk) 01:27, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

• Merge to Perl programming language. In cases like this where the subject by itself is not all that notable, but the material when merged might still be of some lesser interest, that is the best WP:ATD. Iljhgtn (talk) 00:32, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Views are split between deleting and merging. Need to consider more if there is any content that could be put in the parent Perl article.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 08:36, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

There’s a full (photo) book about the Perl communities. Photos were taken at OSCON conferences. The book was edited in 2008.

It may qualify as a secondary source, as the author can be considered « indépendant » from the Perl community itself.

The photos can be seen on Flickr too. Smonff (talk) 07:31, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

• Keep - I found several more sources in books and old computing journals on archive.org and added these with some more facts. I also reorganized the article a bit. I think there are enough sources to justify keeping this article. It is referenced in multiple independent sources from the early 2000s as the second-most important Perl conference and as the grassroots, low cost conference. This would explain why it's not visible in the ACM Digital Library - it wasn't academic and it was for people without lots of money. That kind of event is often less visible in the historical record, not because they're less important but because there is less money in PR and documentation. The frequently mentions (each at least a paragraph specifically about the conference series, some have more) are evidence that the conferences were significant. In addition to the many paragraphs saying this is an important conference if you'r interested in Perl, there is a 3/4 page review of the 2001 Amsterdam conference in the Dutch Linux Magazine. There was probably more coverage at the time that is difficult to find digitally today. Lijil (talk) 09:39, 23 December 2025 (UTC)
• weak keep: more than enough coverage in Gscholar to show it exists , . Article needs a rewrite, as it's more of a list of events, but has been going on for over 20 yrs now with coverage in books and various articles. Oaktree b (talk) 14:10, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

  Can you give me a passage from the second source? The first is a very short paragraph -- not enough to write an article with. HyperAccelerated (talk) 18:47, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

  The second article is paywalled but appears to about this conference series, which would be Yet Another Source supporting notability! If you additionally look at the several sources I added to the article already I think you’ll agree there is more than enough for WP:GNG. Lijil (talk) 12:16, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

  Actually I had already included source 1 in my revisions of the article. Lijil (talk) 12:17, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

  You're not answering my question. Can you give me a passage from the second source? HyperAccelerated (talk) 17:16, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

  It's available from Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library. You should meet the relevant prerequisites for access and be able to search the title of the article from TWL's EBSCOHost.

  Since then, Perl Mongers [a user group brian d foy summarizes the history of] organized, as loosely as possible, a community. The Pittsburgh Perl Mongers put on the first Yet Another Perl Conference, from which Kevin Lenzo started Yet Another Society, which turned into The Perl Foundation. Now the Perl user groups are the worker bees of YAPC (and without any work for me!).

  Aaron Liu (talk) 20:15, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

  That seems like a trivial mention to me, unless there's additional context that you've omitted. In the absence of any additional information, I'm going to say that neither of these sources cover the subject at sufficient depth. HyperAccelerated (talk) 21:02, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

  Lijil has added several more sources to reference claims in the article. Just those referenced claims alone seem enough to justify a standalone article, so I say Keep. The Locations section should probably be removed and converted to Wikidata entries like d:Q483279#P706. Aaron Liu (talk) 20:27, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

  After thinking about it some more, all of the contents could be comfortably merged as a subsection of Perl#Community. I did not notice that a decent chunk of the History section is also just locations, and the Reception section would still make sense as a part of a subsection. Aaron Liu (talk) 23:07, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Merge or keep?
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, 11WB (talk) 15:29, 30 December 2025 (UTC)

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.