https://img143.imageshack.us/img143/806 … diapx3.jpg

yeah, the main reason why i haven't launched it yet is because i need to find all the sources! If i don't include the references, my article will be ripped to shreds in no time...

And also, as you might have noticed, I'm trying to be as subtle and polite as i can: instead of writing

I wrote

:D

lol you're right... there's not much I can say!

I would also appreciate it if the forum would be less chatty. It's getting very difficult to follow the thread of discussion, e.g. my response for your message above is on a new page, and it's only been about 12 hours. You should edit your messages instead of posting multiples messages. Also please try not to stray too much from the topic of the thread.

http://capsoff.org/competition:results

is this the one that you mean?

Aye Aye captain.

Please answer, I need to know this, because I don't want to write any wrong things into wikipedia! (even though it's 'only' the german one. ;D

Oh... Sorry I'll try to research better next time. Were there any releases previously? I mean any unfinished versions of the layout.

Is it okay if I write "The final version was released on Jan. 1st 2006" though, or should I write "It was released on Jan. 1st 2006"?

Okay, I will keep it as the former, as I've worded it in such a way as that it doesn't neccessarily say that there have been any previous versions.

Well, before we go all crazy trying to build a wikipedia article for colemak, perhaps we should make sure that there are references to it first.
I just added Colemak to the "Original" section of the Keyboard layouts page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Original

edit: I also urge you all to slow down a bit, and consider the policies of Wikipedia on articles.
In particular,
1. No original research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia … l_research
2. Notability: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

I believe that the deletion of the article was NOT unfair at the time. I wouldn't be surprised if the actual number of full-time users of Colemak is lower than Shai's estimate of 350-700. Note that there are still fewer than 200 people bookmarking colemak.com on delicious.

Nonetheless, with Colemak making (minor) appearances on Slashdot, Metafilter, and some prominent blogs (e.g. the creator of Ruby, Matz), a case can probably be made for a page. Which would definitely help with promotion.

What could help more, however, would be more success stories!

http://del.icio.us/  A social bookmarking site with a clever name.  Popular with the Web 2.0 crowd.

Having spent some time on Wikipedia and gotten to know what makes it tick, here are some comments:

The article was nominated as an AfD (Article for Deletion) in November last year. AfD discussions usually last for a week or so, and anyone can participate in them, including unregistered users. They are advertised at the top of the article along with an invitation for all interested parties to have their say. At the end of the discussion, a decision is made by the closing administrator based on everyone's comments. It can sometimes be a bit of a lottery, especially when the consensus is not clear. However, in this case there was a clear consensus that Colemak is not notable enough for Wikipedia. The original author of the article was even one of the ones who recommended deletion.

It appears that the article was subsequently re-created and then deleted a further four times. It was protected from re-creation because it had been re-created several times, presumably without any evidence being presented that its notability had increased since the AfD discussion. This tends to be frowned upon by the Wikipedia community.

So what to do about it?

The best way to proceed is via a deletion review request. You can submit one by following the instructions at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review though you will need to demonstrate that Colemak is more than just Yet Another Keyboard Layout. Get together some reliable sources that establish notability: are there any notable users, for instance? Any mentions in the mainstream press? Any peer reviewed papers? How notable was the Caps Off award? Blogs alone don't tend to hold a great deal of weight, unless they are particularly high profile (think Joel on Software, Robert Scoble, etc). Remember that the overwhelming majority of Wikpedians use QWERTY and are not impressed by statistics alone.

A deletion review works much like an AfD discussion except in reverse. It gets discussed for a few days then a consensus is reached. Resist the temptation to all pile in at once and try and shout down the deletionists: a large number of new accounts and anonymous editors piling in on a discussion tends to raise suspicions of either (a) off-wiki canvassing, or (b) sockpuppetry (multiple accounts created by the same person to try and stack the deck in debates such as these). These tactics are generally frowned on and can backfire in a big way if someone picks up on them.

The problem there is that Wikipedia has a policy against being used for advocacy, advertising and so on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:NOT#SOAP

Which is called "advocacy". Which is what WP:NOT#SOAP doesn't like, unfortunately.

It seems that the two best sources for Colemak notability are the Caps Off competition and David Piepgrass's paper, but somehow I don't think that's going to cut much ice in a deletion review. Chances are someone will say "Who is David Piepgrass, and has his paper been peer reviewed?"

That is true, but it is still advocacy in the eyes of the Wikipedia community. That is why they insist on a certain level of notability -- and verifiability -- before articles can pass AfD. The important thing to do is to get those references together to submit to a deletion review.