Talk:Softpedia

message: I have spent a lot of time working this article over in an attempt to glean out the notable information (what Softpedia does) from the not notable (how many buttons are on its navigation menu).  Here is my detailed discussion of the changes I made and why I believe the changes were warranted.  There is also a lot of grammar and spelling fixes - please do not simply revert to the old version, because they will lose these sorts of changes.
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Company profile
I have removed the "N/A" information - if it's not applicable, there's no reason to have it be there.
*fair enough.  that was information I did not know if SP wanted me listing so I left it N/A in the hopes they would fill in what they felt completing.
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Introduction
"Softpedia is best known for doing thorough testing of each software product and game they list, providing high quality, home made screenshots for each program as well as checking each one for any evidence of viruses, malware, adware or spyware using a variety of well know antivirus and antispyware products. "
This paragraph is what Softpedia claims to do, but these are unverified; without a reference this must be weakened to "Softpedia says..."
*Fair enough
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"Providing high quality home made screenshots for each program" is demonstrably false.  See, for example, http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Developer-Tools/KFDecorator.shtml
*Check the news section.  They only started providing home made screenshots recently so there remains listed softwares which need updating.  But their new company policy is providing home made screenshots for everything that is able to be screencapped.
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"well known antivirus and antispyware products" requires a reference; I removed the "well known" bit.
*Fair enough.
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"Programs which are free of any viruses, malware, adware and spyware are given the highly respected 100% Clean award, with those programs which are free at the same time being given the 100% Free award."
This should read "programs that Softpedia finds free of viruses..."  The "highly respected," without a reference, is editorializing.
*Fair enough.
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Screenshots
I think that the first screenshot, showing the main page, is good because it also shows some listings and gives a sense of the site.  Separate screenshots of listings of specific categories are redundant.  The screenshots showing the "Software Submit" form and "Feedback" form can be cut; most articles about web pages include only one screenshot.
*Fair enough.
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Site Sections
Most of the discussion of the "Sections" are the same with "Linux" or "Macintosh" replaced with Windows; this can be condensed into a few sentences, at which point it no longer warrants a separate category.  Condensed and moved to the previous section.
*While I see your point, I think its fine the way it is since the other 3 or so sections are listed off the way it is now.
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Category structure
This appears to have been copied verbatim from the Softpedia help.  As such, it is a copyright violation, and in any case, the Wikipedia article should not be replacing the site's own help.  This can be summed up in a single phrase, "in hierarchial categories," which I added to the above section.
*Softpedia admins had no problems with it.  If Im not wrong one should usually take this up with the copyright holder and have him/her be the judge.  And in this case they wouldn't have a problem as they know it has been used.  But whatever, I won't object to removing something which is already available in the help on their site.
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Membership system
This is also copied verbatim from the site's own help.  I summed this up with the sentence "Registered users can post comments about the software or news articles."
*Same comments about the copyrights.  But that is fine what you did.
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Features available to all users
I consider the software poll and ratings to be notable enough to add to the above section.  The "read user reviews" is redundant - if users can post reviews, they can obviously be read.  The "report broken link" isn't notable; "report spyware" is notable for being part of the mechanism that Softpedia uses to detect spyware, and therefore belongs in the discussion of how Softpedia attempts to detect spyware.  The "Klip farm" isn't notable.  "Unlimited free downloads" can be rolled into the discussion of what users can do.  "Viewing of screenshots" is implied by the fact that Softpedia provides screenshots, but I added "free screenshots" to make that clear.
*I have no objections.
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Features available to registered users
A brief mention of the discussion board is warranted; I added "Users...can discuss software."  Reviews have already been mentioned; the "download basket" isn't notable.  "Post opinion" is the same as reviews.  "Subscribe" is notable, and I added a line about it above: "and receive e-mails when their favorite software is updated."
*I have no objections.
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Submitting software to Softpedia
This section is essentially "How to use this site," which isn't appropriate.  A discussion of how Softpedia finds the software it lists would be useful, but I am not prepared to write that now.
*No objections.
*I will work on that information.
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Awards given by Softpedia
Softpedia Users' Choice award winners
I consider these two sections to be good as written.
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History of major changes
I consider a lot of these "major changes" to not be notable - some of them are as minor as "Softpedia added a link," and it's not the role of Wikipedia to categorize every time any web page adds a link.  But I am leaving this alone for now.
*All of this information I have compiled and Softpedia admins confirm this to be accurate.  I find it valuable.  An encyclopedia is also meant to be used as learning about history.  I think it is good to have a history about a particular thing, whether it be a major war or just a general website.  Hell, I would like to know when Google came out of beta...but we dont have that information now do we?
However, if you feel multiple entries for the same month should be consolidated into one entry for that month then change it as you see fit.
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Miscellaneous information
The note about hotlinking is only a technical detail and not notable.  The "Anybody can submit software" line should not give detailed instructions for submitting software, but I would like to see a discussion of how Softpedia obtains its software in another section.  The "Free of charge" is discussed above - "Users can freely download..."  So this section can be removed.
Navigation and search
This section is copied verbatim from an older revision of Softpedia, and is therefore a copyright violation.  I do not think a discussion of the number of buttons in the navigation menu warrants being included in an encyclopedia article about the site, unless the navigation is unusual in some way.  I removed this section for the copyright violation and for notability.
*The majority of the stuff in that section I agree can be removed as it was straight from the website, however I think that random tidbits of information (that would otherwise be unable to fall under any major category) is always a good thing to have about any article.
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Reporting broken links
I don't consider the ability to report broken links notable.
*Eh...
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Softpedia Poll
I don't consider the discussion of the technical details of IP filtering for a poll on a site not devoted to polling to be notable. 
*Eh...
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External links
A link to the front page of the Softpedia site is sufficient; if there were country-specific versions of Softpedia, these might also be included.  This should not be a navigation menu for the site.  I don't see a reason to include the answers.com link - that could potentially be included for every article on Wikipedia!  Unless there's some motivation for including it for the Softpedia article in particular, it should go.  The same is true for big-boards, archive.org, alexa, crawler, statbrain, and netcraft.  Other articles on websites do not include these sorts of links.
*No objections with answers.com or the separate pages on SP.
*I'm happy you recognized the top 20 was no anywhere on the homepage (as they hide it after they changed the homepage) and kept the link.
*Big-Boards was kind of dumb since it is a stupid in its nature...I was just trying to find "external links" related to the site.
*Archive.org I think is relavant for a WEBSITE.  It is another form of "history" and I think it should be included.
*I think Alexa should be here but if you think the link in the beginning description is enough and therefore is redundant to include here, fine.
*Crawler is redundant, and considering they dont get near as much traffic info as Alexa it is somewhat worthless to have.
*Statbrain...see comment on Big-Boards.
*Netcraft is a major and highly trusted anti-phishing site.  People who live and die by this site would find a link to SP.com at netcraft useful.
Ridiculous fish 00:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  re 

message: This article should be removed because it promotes a web sites which pops up dangerous and weird windows! I use Zone Alarm Pro as a firewall and Kaspersky Anti-Virus, I know my computer is clean and protected so I decided to give Softpedia a try. While I was checking for a program, the content of the page suddenly changed to some nasty spam/malware ad and I immediately disconnected my modem. I knew something like that would happen since it's a Romanian site. (Do not get me wrong, no offense). Remove / delete this article at once! (You can check the site if you don't believe me.) 85.103.223.209 02:35, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not safe 

message: Where is criticism from the article? Where is NPOV? My only encounter with Softpedia were Free Download Manager, which it claims is spyware and adware-free. Yeah, it's not adware, but it contains ads (advertisement about advertising in the program :), and it suspiciously have ~2..3% CPU usage even when not downloading. It's a software with access to the internet, so it also isn't sure if it is spyware-free. Its softpedia article is like a bad PR text and doesn't contain any remarkable information about the testing, the behaviour of the program, etc.
Also, this cableguy should be banned.
Frigo 21:51, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism 

message: I've added the Advert template to this article, because many of the images, links, and details provided read more like an advertisement than an encyclopedic article.  Many of these details are already available on Softpedia's website, and do not need to be included here.  If you're having navigation desing issues with your website, fix your website instead of trying to cram unnecessary lists of links onto Wikipedia.  Wikipedia is not a repository of links or images.  --Dachannien 20:26, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Advert 

message: Jesus you people need to get a life and worry about more pressing articles.  There should be an article called "Keeping it real".
Advert?  Are you kidding me?  You might as well delete every article on here about a webpage...they are all adverts if that is the case.
NPOV...what on here is not NPOV?  There is nothing on here which makes negative or positive comments towards any other site or any feature of the Softpedia site.  It is an informative article about a genuine site on the internet.  If you find something, then stop being a dope and complaining about it here.  You people seem to know how to use the edit button.  Instead of posting about it here and complaining how the article is NPOV or whatever the hell you think is wrong, just edit the page as you see fit.
You people keep trying to make yourselves out to be patriots of Wikipedia...trying to make it the perfect encyclopedia.  Fine, sounds great....however, you aren't helping your cause by complaining about this article, putting dumb tags and not editing it yourself.
Either edit the article as you see fit, or move on to the next article.
This article hardly needs any of your input.
10:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nominating this article for deletion is sounding like a better idea all the time, but I'll be kind and just put the advert template back in. --Dachannien 00:38, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe I didn't make myself clear.  There is a reason why you choose to be an editor/contributor here.  You CHOOSE to EDIT articles.  E-D-I-T.  As I tried and SUCCEEDED in making clear to another person who did the same dumb crap you are doing with tags with another article I contributed to, if YOU think the article requires changes then YOU make the changes.  YOU can't expect someone else to do the changes YOU want to make.  Stop being dumb and putting dumb tags and instead make the edits YOU want to make.  Be a wikipedia saint, and make contributions which are actually worthwhile.  The article's intent is good, if you think the content is bad then edit it.  No one is going to do the work for you, as you have seen from the history.  I am one of maybe, three people who edit.  Either you can become the fourth, or just leave the article alone.  --CableguyTK Cableguytk 01:48, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:OWN --Dachannien 19:17, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sigh 

message: Yes please try.
I dont see what I am doing wrong.  I am defending the effort that I have put into the articles I contribute to.
Instead of defending against people who ACTUALLY EDIT THE CONTENT, which I dont mind, I am defending it against a bunch of dopes who do nothing but put dumb TAGS, expecting OTHER PEOPLE to do the work they will never do.
What spamming?  I dont see spamming.  I am legitimately talking about the edits here on this discussion page.  All you seem to do is just come here and ask the admins for a ban.  Talk about real contributions to Wikipedia.
If CRAP is what you call the content you are removing, then so be it.  I at least got your LAZY ass to do something.  *claps hands*.
I certainly dont think very highly of you.  Id like to know someone who does.
.
.
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Oh, and by the way, if the real Wikipedia police found this article to be an advertisement, it would have been deleted by now.  Seeing as how it hasn't...sucks for you. Cableguytk 21:09, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To Frigo 

message: I heard about Softpedia for the first time today, so I started poking around.  I have evidence that the site actively participates in the distribution of malware.  I intend to soon edit the article to this effect, and I will ensure that my edits will be within Wikipedia guidelines and acceptable to the community at large.
I mention this here because some editors here seem to be very emotional about Softpedia.  I would like to give you an opportunity to respond before I make this edit.
Jarhed 00:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Negative edit about Softpedia

message: I have evidence that the site actively participates in the distribution of malware
WHAT evidence? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.97.183.187 (talk) 09:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Reply

message: According to this source, Softpedia.com was established in 2003. However, I think that just reflects the year that the name was changed from Softnews.ro to Softpedia.com. At this time, we just need a source to confirm that Softnews.ro was created in November 2001. -- Black Falcon (Talk) 04:23, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Year of founding

message: I researched Softpedia as it seemed to have the potential of being an excellent resource for free software.  I quoted from Symantec and McAffee web sites.  Both which I consider to be standards in the computer security business but that is my opinion.  There are some interesting negative points brought up about Softpedia in this discussion such that it distributes software for generating spam.  I don't have the time to see if it is still distributing it.  It appears that Softpedia honestly tries to weed out bad software but is not 100% successful.JTH01 21:00, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For a few reasons, I have reverted your additions. First, articles should avoid self-references ("reader is urged to consider", "it is worth noting", and so on). Second, part of the content was copy-pasted directly from the McAfee website, but not surrounded with quotation marks. Finally, I think your addition introduced an original synthesis in that it attempted to establish a connection between Symantec's decision and Softpedia's safety and moreover attempted to suggest something about the website's integrity (a highly subjective concept). Such claims (including such connections) should be attributed to reliable sources. I do believe that Softpedia tries to weed out bad software, and the issue of download safety may be worth writing about, but any added content should be based purely on what reliable sources have to say about the subject. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 23:48, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

text: Hi, "my" softpedia pages (http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Audio/oTuner-80311.shtml etc) do link back to my original homepage via the developer page (http://handheld.softpedia.com/developer/code-Biscuit-11841.html).  Further, I would assume that I've got the option of asking them to link to it in the "Description" section on their front page for my software (although I've had mixed success with getting them to edit that).  I found that my software appeared on the site with somewhat shoddy descriptions (definitely not copy-pastes!), screenshots and links "without my consent", but I was happy enough to have another link to my site and they've now done most of the corrections I asked for when I contacted them: I find them reasonably helpful, if a little spurious! 5thWheel (talk) 15:30, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Just Some Facts

message: I know that Softpedia is a malware site.  I know this because I have found downloads on Softpedia of common, standard downloads that are available everywhere, but on the Softpedia site, have been altered from their original to also install malware.
The main purpose of the Softpedia site is to deceive individuals into downloading and installing malware.  The site administrators are extremely sophisticated, and use numerous social engineering techniques to deceive individuals.  In my opinion, this is one of the worst malware sites on the Internet.  I am now working to document this via an authoritative third party, as per Wikipedia rules.
Talk to you later!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jarhed (talk • contribs) 19:42, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have reverted your recent addition, for three reasons. First, the added content was controversial but unsourced (see WP:V). Second, "some individuals have accused ..." is a weasel worded statement. What individuals? Claims of allegations should generally be attributed. Third, the final statement, urging "extreme care", effectively constitutes a disclaimer, which goes against current practice and policy. If there are allegations in reliable sources that Softpedia is a malware site or contains malware, they should be noted and attributed. Cheers, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:30, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, I have made no edits to this article yet, but I will just as soon as I have a verifiable source.  Have a great day!Jarhed (talk) 12:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know why people add opinions to a Wikipedia page based on their own findings and not after they verify it against multiple sources. Please reference your "information" before posting anything. The page details general information about the site with no "extra" promotion. I have a problem with Facebook, but I don't add my opinion to Facebook's main wiki page. It's MY opinion. If this page is considered to be as "promotional", than Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo and all other pages should be deleted as well. They are as promotional as this one. Campuscodi (talk) 08:59, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Malware Site

message: Image is outdated.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.17.197.251 (talk) 11:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image 

message: I find it alarming that there is apparently no independent citable third party review of this entity, here or anywhere on the net.  If there was an independent published reviewe of the site, it should be included.  The absence if this also speaks volumes. Stephen Charles Thompson (talk) 06:08, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  lack of tird party information 

message: Can anyone provide a legitimate, policy based explanation for why that section is there?  We generally do not provide what is essentially promotional information for a site unless it is notable enough to have been discussed in third party sources, and even then it's not always acceptable to include.  Unless there's a good reason, I'm inclined to remove the whole section.  Qwyrxian (talk) 05:31, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I looked at the URLs posted by one editor (they have since been deleted). They are all repeats of a single news item. The item was about one spyware program being distributed in several programs. Those programs were carried by several download sites. Softpedia was one of those sites. This belongs to a more general article like download website or something. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:16, 20 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Malware section 

message: This "article" is an advertisement. It is unbalanced and does not mention Softpedia
practices like scraping PyPI .
Also note that some scraped Wikipedia pages (which serve Google ads) magically have links
to Softpedia entries .
In case the Softpedia link disappears, it was a link in the added section
"Zope - Example Usage" (bit.ly/ftr1qW), redirecting to:
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Programming/Libraries/z3c-soap-64151.shtml
-sanstaafl
:Other sites are allowed to scrape Wikipedia--you can read full details at Wikipedia:Text of Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.  Those sites can then do anything they want with it, including linking to Softpedia--it is of no concern to us.
:Second, if the article reads like an ad, then the solution is to improve it so that it is neutral, not delete it, unless you can demonstrate that it is impossible to write a neutral article (because no neutral sources exist).  Third, if you have a reliable source, you are welcome to add information about "scraping PyPI" (whatever that means).  Please note, though, that the link you provided does not meet our guidelines for reliable sources.  But we don't delete articles because they don't list every single thing about the subject.  Qwyrxian (talk) 02:57, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for deletion