I'm not sure that the second deletion debate was closed correctly. The closing admin said that the issue of reliable secondary sources was not addressed, but it was by at least one of the "keep" votes. Wikipedia articles with the level of sourcing you get for Colemak more usually tend to go "no consensus" -- especially if you focus on what sources there are and argue for their reliability -- and that defaults to keep. A deletion review might possibly get somewhere.

An alternative approach is an appeal to a lesser known Wikipedia policy called "Ignore All Rules" or IAR. Basically it says that common sense is more important than policies and guidelines, which can be ignored if you can make a strong enough case as to why common sense should prevail. The fact that almost no alternative keyboard layouts get any media coverage at all, and that Colemak appears fairly prominently in the setup wizard for Ubuntu, may well be sufficient.

Even if the article isn't restored, you could always ask for it to be made into a redirect to Keyboard layout#Colemak.

Finally, if the worst comes to the worst, there is nothing stopping you from mentioning Colemak in other articles where it is appropriate to do so, such as QWERTY, Dvorak Simplified Keyboard, Keyboard Layout, and so on -- notability guidelines do not directly limit article content. If anyone removes it again, just challenge them on why they're doing so, and be prepared to provide sources if necessary.

I'd say, let it be the way they want it.

Honestly, after reading through both the deletion discussion, and several other *very* heated debates on Wikipedia, I turned my mind, from `We gotta have Wikipedia entry' to `Let them have it the way they want'. There are at least two reasons.

First, some wikipedians seem to be quite unhappy with having an article on matter they consider not notable. And, from the point of view of some of them, Colemak is but an uncommon extension to an uncommon OS, Linux. They tend to be very vocal about it, too, using colorfull wordings and whatnot. Of course, we know well it isn't the case anymore, but we can't yet easily prove, or support it. At least in a way convincing to them. If we push again and again, we'll just develop bad fame; that would do anything but help.

(( Note, I don't assume any bad faith from their side. It's the other way around, actually, they may have more experience running an encyclopedia than most of us... ))

Second, I am sure they will be more than happy to hold an article on Colemak once there is second or third independent publication giving Colemak some credit, in a reliable (their meaning) source. Of course, not being featured on Wikipedia lowers Colemak's chances of being spotted and written about, but it will happen at some point, for sure.

Anyway, there is more to publicly open wikis than just the Wikipedia; maybe we should start by seeding them? http://en.citizendium.org/ comes to mind first. After all, aren't we accustomed to using an uncommon alternative to a dominant `standard' of the keyboard layout? ;)

Also, non-english wikipedias seem to have somewhat independent rulesets and consensuses; perhaps some of them would be happy to host an article on Colemak? I'll check withe the polish one soon.

wow google translate did a fantastic job of translating that!

How this benefits Australians is beyond me :D

EDIT: here's a link, by the way http://translate.google.com/translate?u … l=es&tl=en

never heard of it but an interesting idea