Hello all Wikipedia users/editors!
I’m wondering if I could get some help addressing the “multiple issues” banner on the NixOS Wikipedia entry: NixOS - Wikipedia.
I’m hoping with some help we can make it look more like Gentoo Linux - Wikipedia
I more or less make minor edits when I can on Wikipedia so I’m reaching out into the darkness hoping there are other more experienced editors that could address some of the issues. The neutrality issue seems most worrisome.
I think there are some questionable claims in the article. I don’t think NixOS is necessarily more secure because of its immutability, and security is a very wide spectrum. One could argue that systems like Debian and RHEL who have tighter control over their package repos can be more secure (when used wisely) than nixpkgs.
So I think that as much as we love NixOS and we are convinced of its benefits, we probably also need to be more objective in an article like this.
I think Wikipedia is also not the place to market, so we should probably just present the facts without any value judgements.
“Reliance on primary sources” afaiu means that very little information is quoted from an article of a renowned media / journal / newssite / etc
Iirc, wikipedia has a built in trust-the-professionals (journalist) mechanism.
Thanks for bringing our attention to this! The existing article is a good start, but it is pretty easy to see why the neutrality is being questioned. Two paragraphs in, and it feels like I am reading propaganda, not an encyclopedia article. Note the occurrence of “more”, “better”, and “advantage” already in the intro, when this is supposed to be a descriptive, not prescriptive or comparison article.
Hmmm… I’d be happy to help, but I am a bit new to Wikipedia process and etiquette. I guess one just makes changes?
Thanks so much for the offer of help. Yep, one just needs to start making edits. I’m going to look on the net for some good secondary sources and share them here. But, yes, we need to make it sound much more like an encyclopedia article and once that’s done it kinda acts as a marketing thing on its own.
https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=nixos - probably already linked
6 Advanced Distributions for Expert Linux Users - might be useful source?
https://thenewstack.io/nixos-a-combination-linux-os-and-package-manager/ - good for counter arguments?
Replit — How we went from supporting 50 languages to all of them - a supporter and user
Making NixOS modules for fun and (hopefully) profit - Xe Iaso - might be useful as source?
I’ve made some minor edits that quote the manual (the facts) and more of those are probably needed. Getting rid of the issues banner is the first goal
Wikipedia is also not the place to market, so we should probably just present the facts without any value judgements.
100% - a well written article presenting the facts alone turns into good marketing anyway at least on Wikipedia and at least IMO 
So… here’s a funny question: how does one find non-primary sources that are accurate and enduring, and comment on NixOS? I like the articles that @rjpc sent. Are press releases worth citing, or not? What about blog entries? Community portals?
The Gentoo article has many citations pointing to gentoo.org. I assume, then, that it is acceptable for us to reference nixos.org to some degree.
I think citing nixos.org should be fine (along with nix manual and nixpkgs manual perhaps). See Wikipedia:Reliable sources - Wikipedia
The ding about primary sources…
Policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic, evaluative, interpretive, or synthetic claim only if it has been published by a reliable secondary source.
I don’t really know what reliable means. Probably sites like theregister:
More here too, I suppose Help:Maintenance template removal - Wikipedia
And, yes, I think press releases are good (9to5 is kinda well known?). It’s really about appeasing whatever Wikipedia editors deem as reliable. I’m thinking we’re getting dinged more for the tone and lack of neutrality. Of course the articles posted herein should help.
I’ve started minor edits that are attempting to make it sound more like the gatekeepers of Wikipedia would like it to sound (I suppose)
Certainly sounds more be neutral! I like the changes so far.