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I found this page, which appears to have been little more than an advertisement for the site in question, maintained by one user. I eliminated a lot of inappropriate detail and extra screenshots, and tried to cut the article down to something comparable to other articles about websites.
-ridiculous fish
Cableguy, you have reverted the page several times to your version. The level of detail is inappropriate - how many other articles about web sites have a screenshot of the feedback form? The use of adjectives like "renowned" and "highly respected" make the article read as if it's a press release for the website, especially because there are no references. In fact, further in the article, you seem to confuse Wikipedia with the Softpedia site itself - you refer to it as "our site" and the administrators as "we." This is self-aggrandizing and has no place here.
You are removing way too much content.
As I have stated in the changes...talk to the SP admins. ALL the information in the page is 100% accurate and factual. The only information which is based off my own research is the section containing the major dates...however, those dates are accurate as well if you actully were to contact the SP admins and ask them.
This article was not meant to be an advertisement. A lot of the information on the page is copied from the website,
so when there are "we"'s it is due to the SOURCE having "we"'s. Instead of being a nice, genuine wikipedia user and taken the time to edit these little "problems" as you see fit, you have gone a different route and removed way too much content that I, and the SP admins, as well as other SP users, find is relavant about the site.
There have been probably a few hundred users to this article and none of them seem to have a problem with the page...you just happen to be the first... Who says that there is "too much" content for an item?
If the Softpedia admins felt that there was too much information disclosed about the site, then it would be removed.
If other general users (unlike yourself) felt there was too much jargon about the website they would SELECTIVELY remove it as they see fit.
You need to stop acting like everyone on the web is a technical user, accept the fact that most people aren't technical and information like that provided in this article is gladly accepted as everybody knows that no one reads the FAQ's on a webpage.
If you wish for me to go through and remove certain bits of information that you, specifically, do not find NPOV, then I will do that. However I completely object to removing factual information about the site that would otherwise help uninformed users in learning about the site.
You seem to be the only one who actually cares about the content in the screenshots.
I take it you aren't a software developer. I think that software developers will find the screenshot of the "submit software form" very helpful...Software websites aren't ONLY for download junkies.
BTW: I am the only one who edits the page because no one else decided to undertake editing the stub besides myself. Hey Im sorry if this page isn't as highly trafficed as your Army pages are.
-CableguyTK
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.
Company profile
I have removed the "N/A" information - if it's not applicable, there's no reason to have it be there.
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..."
"Providing high quality home made screenshots for each program" is demonstrably false. See, for example, http://mac.softpedia.com/get/Developer-Tools/KFDecorator.shtml
"well known antivirus and antispyware products" requires a reference; I removed the "well known" bit.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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."
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.
Awards given by Softpedia Softpedia Users' Choice award winners
I consider these two sections to be good as written.
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.
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.
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.
Reporting broken links I don't consider the ability to report broken links notable.
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.
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.
Ridiculous fish 00:02, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
Far too much material was removed in that last edit. One of the aspects of being bold is that if you go too far, others may revert it. Your assertions of copyvio, by the way, need to be asserted with the {{copyvio}} template, instead of merely blanking them. Also, your statement that the Softpedia admins should not be editing this page is wrong. They're perfectly welcome to edit the page and correct information: they just should not be the principle contributors, but even this is a guideline and not a policy. Remember, this is the encyclopedia that ANYONE can edit. ⇒ SWATJester Ready Aim Fire! 06:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
A bloggers comment on softpedia Hugo's blog.
I think it's problematic at best to list the softpedias awards so superficialy as long as their lab crew is anonymous and their testing procedures and criteria is untransparent. They are an unknown group, and their claims are unprovable.
another blog post on softpedia, on how they distributed a fake firefox build.
As the article stands now, Wikipedia lends of it credibility to softpedia. -- Arnljot76 19:27, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
---
It really depends on who you talk to as to the opinion of Softpedia. If you asked me I would say they are trust worthy, and their staff is not anonymous to me.
I have asked the admins several times to do something like Download.com does, which is provide a page which has a short little blurb about each Download.com along with a picture. We shall see if they choose to do this in the near future ;).
If you check the link on the blog post of the "fake" browser it doesnt work anymore. Softpedia removed it. On a side note, if you check the history, which I have conveniently put together on the Wiki article, you will see that they didn't start testing the stuff they listed until October 2004. This whole fake browser stuff was listed back in 2003, before they actually tested the softwares they listed.
Today they test, HAND TEST, every software listed. Where do you think all the screenshots come from? The ones that don't have screenshots that have been updated recently are either a javascript program, a program run from the command console, or something along those lines.
They still have a lot of archived softwares from 2003 when they became Softpedia.com which have old screenshots and have not been tested. Any software listed before October 2004 which hasnt been updated (by the developer) since then are this way. They will eventually cover all old softwares...just have to be patient. They also rely on user input...so if you send update information about an old software that can help them update old softwares.
-CableguyTK 8:43PM EST, April 14, 2006.
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)
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)
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)
I think we can even consider it for deletion & rewrite from scratch. It's simply a too detailed spam. Frigo 11:31, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
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)Cableguytk
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.
.
.
.
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)
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)
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).
My security software also reads Softpedia as full of malware, etc. I guess this article should be immediately edited and a clear warning about softpedia-related threats should be added to it.
By the way, an annoing automatic forum poster (spambot) is advertised on a site that has recently received softedias "safety certificate". I guess this should be remarkable as well as the fact, that infamous icontool has received that certificate too. Anybody brave (or stupid) enough can download one of of these and check it himself. Nobody should visit softpedia when using an IE browser, anyway :)
@ Cableguy: you seem to be very interested in spreading the false information about those suckers from Softpedia. Aren't you somehow connected with them? That would be very possible, judging from your whole activity in this discussion. People, don't let another spammer fool you! Cableguy is just one of those guys trying to spread Softpedia brand across the web: type in 'softpedia' in your local (national) Google and check, how these f**** are tricky: they are posting fake articles/comments, stating that rest is to be found on softpedia website. Again: In my opinion this article should be converted to the proper state - it should warn people from accessing Softpedia.
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)
Cableguytk, that some of Softpedia's downloads contain adware is not presented as an indisputable fact, but is rather attributed specifically to McAfee SiteAdvisor. Per Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, articles must "represent fairly and without bias all significant views (that have been published by reliable sources)." This means that relevant negative information must be included as well.
As for your most recent comment, I want to kindly ask you to refrain from making personal attacks on me. I have no interest in smearing or glorifying Softpedia. I will note again: the existence or non-existence of content in any other article has absolutely no relevance to status of content in this article. If a reliable source claims that some of Download.com's downloads contain adware, you may note it in the Download.com article, but that piece of information is not relevant to this article.
If there is a reason to remove the quote, other than that the same can be said of Download.com ( not relevant) or that the quote diminishes the number of people who visit Softpedia (Wikipedia is not a vehicle for advertising), please state it. -- Black Falcon ( Talk) 20:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/download.com/summary -
Download.com
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/tucows.com/summary -
Tucows
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/simtel.net/summary -
Simtel
I can go on and on (the list of sites which have the generic message is endless). Every download site has this message from SiteAdvisor, at least those which SiteAdvisor has gotten around to testing. Seeing as how articles for ALL of those sites exists, it is beyond me why you are giving Softpedia preferential treatment in listing this dumb bit of information.
I question your motives for listing this information on Softpedia if you are not listing it (legitimately) on the other pages listed. If your intents were in fact neutral you would be making it your duty to list it on all of those pages, which makes me believe this is a genuine smear campaign.
I would also like to see if you would defend the bit of information if you run into the same resistance on those respective pages. Not only am I sure that you will run into resistance, but Im also sure you would probably ignore it.
Second, you are leaving out half of the bit: "In our tests of this site, a very small percentage of its many downloads contained adware or other unwanted programs. However, Softpedia prohibits these programs and removes them when found."
Third, Softpedia doesnt host the software, it links to them. I can goto many sites (that are not softpedia affiliated) and find a link which leads to "bad" software. One day I went to Alexa.com and it was linking to ContraVirusPro.com in its traffic graph because traffic has spiked. Little did I know that ContraVirus is a known rogue antivirus program which should not be installed.
The bit of information is generic in its nature and worthless for sites of this nature since nobody has control of developers changing their policy to include adware, nor do they notify the download site of the information. Cableguytk 17:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
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)
Could the wikipedia page be opinionated? Something like : softpedia does not link back to the original website, presenting itself as being the main provider of the software. For example the winpcap page http://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/Protocol-Analyzers-Sniffers/WinPcap.shtml does not link to winpcap.org at all, and visiting the download page for winpcap http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/WinPcap-Download-25344.html is even worse since the downloads links all point to winpcap.org but they are labelled as "mirror". Let's make this clear : this site never provides anything else but copy & paste from the original with only link to the binaries going back to the original site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.109.72.246 ( talk) 13:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
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)
Image is outdated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.17.197.251 ( talk) 11:26, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
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)
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)
This "article" is an advertisement. It is unbalanced and does not mention Softpedia practices like scraping PyPI [1]. Also note that some scraped Wikipedia pages (which serve Google ads) magically have links to Softpedia entries [2].
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