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Odin, Wikipedia and Engagement Farming

https://katamari64.se/posts/2026/odin-wikipedia/
39•stock_toaster•1h ago

Comments

willdr•53m ago
Interesting article (I tend to agree with you re SNG in the programming field). But unfortunately I couldn't easily absorb the substance as your site needs some work on mobile:

- text completely overflowing the background

- body text is arguably too small

- the masonry grid layout of posts does not work visually

- footnotes appearing out of order

dibujaron•51m ago
This article makes Odin sound extremely well-known. I've never heard of it before, and I feel like I keep up with programming topics pretty diligently. Admittedly I don't work at the systems programming layer, but I've definitely heard plenty about Rust and c++ topics.

Curious if others feel similarly, or maybe I just happened to miss it?

panzi•49m ago
I am interested in programming language topics and I certainly have heard of Odin and have seen a couple of interviews with Ginger Bill. Same with Zig, Rust, Jai, C++ etc. I haven't used much of these (only C++ and Rust out of these), though. But I find that stuff interesting.
andai•45m ago
The author protested the framing, but it's very much a game-dev oriented language. In fact, it's the most pleasant language for game development I have ever used. It comes with all sorts of "batteries included" in that direction, possibly more than any other existing language. (Well, I still didn't get my Jai invite, so who knows ;) Odin was a major influence on Jai.)
recursivecaveat•34m ago
I would consider it extremely obscure overall. A large majority of programmers would not be aware of its existence. At the same time there are clearly much less popular languages with articles so it is kindof weird to push to delete. (eg: random scheme implementation w/ no releases in 20 years https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SISC) I would say that wikipedia broadly favors programming languages as far as notability. Like most nerd/geek things their footprint skews toward the internet, and people who enjoy geek stuff are more likely to be wikipedia admins than the general population.
nvme0n1p1•27m ago
SISC is there because it's not notable, so the busybodies haven't even noticed the page exists. Odin, however, is notable, and that put it on their radar as a target for attacking its notability.
woodruffw•3m ago
This is an argument for deleting those non-notable articles as well, not retaining other non-notable articles.
dismalaf•26m ago
It's kind of niche but is getting bigger. The Discord server has 10k members, the biggest(?) Twitch programming streamer has been using it recently, JangaFX is big enough to be used by AAA game companies and a few large film studios, and I'm sure there's plenty of users who aren't on the Discord server.

If you're comparing it to Rust/C++ you must live in a cave or something. So yes. It's not that big. But it's probably in the top 10 of hyped languages of the current year. There's a bunch of languages from the 60's to 90's on Wikipedia that have probably never had as many users or software shipped as Odin.

steveklabnik•15m ago
I feel like if you’re into programming languages as a hobby, the chances you know of Odin are pretty high. Not everyone can know everything, of course, but my impression is that it punches above average on notability within the niche.
bobbytheblkbear•4m ago
Wikipedia has articles for exceptionally small and stupid things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages

They already have hundreds of programming language articles, this being singled out is a perfect encapsulation of the sheer lowIQ stupidity of the Wikipedia community and their process.

jibal•4m ago
Odin is extremely well known to every human being who keeps up on programming language development, along with Zig, Nim, D, Jai, V, Crystal, Carbon, and others. "programming topics" isn't relevant.
woodruffw•1m ago
I keep up with PL development, and I am only vaguely aware of Odin (and same for Jai and V).

(But this isn’t the point: lots of programmers know about relatively obscure thing, but that does not itself make them notable. Notability is a well-defined property on Wikipedia.)

smitty1e•48m ago
Well, there's always

https://grokipedia.com/page/Odin_programming_language

pyinstallwoes•14m ago
It’s actually sad you’re downvoted. Oh well. Thanks for sharing an honest alternative.
andai•46m ago
If I've got this right: programming these days -- especially niche areas -- meshes poorly with Wikipedia's guidelines on reliable sources and notability, which were designed mostly with traditional media in mind.

e.g. a company saying they use a language is not considered a good source because it's a primary source? Not sure if I'm getting that part right.

The most interesting part to me: Wikipedia has a bunch of languages that were used by like one person, because there is published material on them, while languages used by thousands of people today get deleted because they fail Wikipedia's specific definition of notability.

And they're reluctant to change that because they expect it would lead to a flood of wannabes making articles about their hobby language.

kibibu•42m ago
I genuinely don't think Malbolge, for example, warrants a Wikipedia page if Odin doesn't
fluoridation•14m ago
Malbolge is basically a meme, and Wikipedia does have articles for memes. Speaking for myself, I have heard about Malbolge, and not about Odin.
JBits•2m ago
Perhaps it is because Malbolge is notable within the category of esolangs.
w10-1•36m ago
In wikipedia-land, I read "primary source" as "motivated source", given their need to prune biased edits.
andrybak•45m ago
> Articles for Deletion votes -- original with comments

>

> Summarizing it, 5/7 for delete have accounts, and 1/4 for keep have accounts. Not along after the final vote, a Wikipedia admin deleted the article. Being a little bit lax with my language, the majority's consensus agreed that Odin isn't notable, and the article had no reliable sources.

important clarification about a popular misconception: "Articles for deletion" discussions on English Wikipedia are not decided by vote.

For more details, see

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Polling_is_not_a_sub...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Guide_to_deletion#Ov...

greyface-•39m ago
For reference, here's the article's content at the time of deletion: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Draft:Odin_(progr...
brooke2k•19m ago
The great thing about Wikipedia is that anyone can participate. Anyone can advocate for change, such as changing the rules around notability.

But if you want to have enough influence to effectively advocate for changing a rule as impactful as the site-wide notability guidelines, then you'd likely want to spend quite a while volunteering, integrating yourself into the community, and learning a lot about how and why the site rules are what they are.

I think that's a good thing. It means the people who have the influence to make huge decisions like that are deeply familiar with the website and the community, and therefore deeply familiar with the consequences of those decisions.

So I just find it frustrating when people who don't participate in the community whatsoever write inflammatory diatribes on why they think the editing guidelines should be changed because their favorite programming language got marked for deletion.

And it's even more frustrating how, when their handful of drive-by tweets fail to immediately enact sweeping change, they and their followers then start a huge flame war, accusing Wikipedia mods of being "cultural marxists" and "shills for the mainstream media" and etc.

Anyways, my point is -- if you want to change things, try participating in the community rather than shouting slurs at it from the outside.

bobbytheblkbear•7m ago
I'll just say the obvious:

Wikipedia admins get it wrong more often than they get it right, and the general process for Wikipedia is obtuse, ignorant, and generally backward, with most of the favor given towards "people with old accounts" as opposed to actual knowledge.

It's beyond simple to get new editors banned for simply creating edits others don't like, no matter what the veracity is.

The only reason it's good for things like science is that it's generally hard for the kind of lowIQ populace their older accounts and admins have to argue about definitive numbers. But I am sure if they could they'd say things like "Hydrogen doesn't actually always have 1 electron", and so on.

bawolff•3m ago
> edits others don't like, no matter what the veracity is.

Wikipedia bans people for their behaviour, not for being right or wrong. So you are correct that veracity is irrelavent.

bawolff•5m ago
> If you are familiar with Odin, one of the most popular "C competitor" languages, this might sound a little bit insane to say out loud

Its hard to believe someone actually said this with a straight face.

I tend to lean more inclusionist, but there is no world where odin is one of the most popular c competitor languages.

dismalaf•1m ago
Zig is more popular. Name a second modern "C competitor" language that's more popular?
netbioserror•31m ago
The fatal flaw here being that secondary sources and tertiary ad infinitum are all always motivated. It's inescapable.
wavemode•28m ago
You've almost got it, except:

> Wikipedia has a bunch of languages that were used by like one person, because there is published material on them

No. It's more like, there are plenty of articles on Wikipedia that don't meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines AT ALL, but when you write an article on Wikipedia and enough time passes without anyone noticing that the article is poorly sourced, then eventually the tendency of Wikipedia community is to just keep it.

This is what has led to the what-about-ism regarding Odin's deletion - there are lots of other programming languages that also don't meet the notability guidelines, yet, to this day, still have Wikipedia articles.

Could someone come along and propose deletion for such articles? Yes, of course. You yourself could go do that right now, if you want. But nobody's getting paid for such work, so someone has to want to. The tendency of Wikipedia editors is that, when an article is many years old, they would rather flag it for improvement rather than simply throw away years of fellow editors' work. Whereas an article that's brand new is likely to not have much work put into it, and also more likely to be self-promotion and/or spam.

This is very frustrating for people who create Wikipedia articles and have them deleted. "You mean, whether or not my non-notable article gets deleted or not is just the luck of whether someone comes along and notices that it's not notable?" Yep. Like I said, nobody's getting paid for deletion work.

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