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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. Withdrawn by nominator. (non-admin closure) asilvering (talk) 05:43, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Brian (software)

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Brian (software) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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This software seems to fail the software notability criteria defined here. Although there is significant coverage, it seems to be either by the authors themselves such as the article they published here or by the institute they are affiliated with like this article here. There is some coverage by other sources such as this but it is not really significant coverage. EvilxFish (talk) 09:32, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although a lot of the arguments were very poor and suffered greatly from WP:VER issues, the awarding of a government prize I believe is enough to satisfy point 4 of the software notability criteria and I do not support the deletion as a consequence EvilxFish (talk) 02:44, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Member of the jury of French government Open Science prize for Free Research Software:
Author of Brian here. It is definitely notable:
  • It has been cited in thousands of peer reviewed articles (see e.g. my google scholar page https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=2HiNqI4AAAAJ&hl=en)
  • It is used in multiple courses around the world to teach neuroscience, most obvious of which being "Neuronal Dynamics", probably the single most well regarded computational neuroscience textbook (https://neuronaldynamics.epfl.ch/)
  • It is downloaded hundreds of times daily (https://pypistats.org/packages/brian2)
  • It recently won a French government Open Science prize (you linked to an article about this in your message)
  • It has over 800 stars on GitHub, putting it in first place in category "computational neuroscience", 6th place in "neuroscience" and 5th place in "spiking neural networks".
  • It is used by multiple other software packages, for example recently Dendrify (https://dendrify.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) which was described in a recent paper in Nature Comms.
Thesamovar (talk) 10:56, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Thesamovar: Thank you for the response, I was unaware that it is so widely used, and I must stress I am not a deletionist, I was just unaware of its impact and could not find sources that showed it met the criteria for inclusion for software. Further to the end of showing it is, I just wanted to respond to a few of the points. First you being the author of the package is a WP:VER issue and not relevant. I think by the citations discussed in the first point we are trying to show that it meets point number 1:
It is discussed in reliable sources as significant in its particular field. References that cite trivia do not fulfill this requirement. See following section for more information.
I would be grateful if you could share one of those references which show that the software is significant if we want to prove its notability via this path.
As for the textbook I believe this is an attempt to show it meets criteria 2:
It is the subject of instruction at multiple grade schools, high schools, universities or post-graduate programs. This criterion does not apply to software merely used in instruction.
In order to show it is significant we therefore need to show that the course teaches the software and not just the course uses the software as part of its instruction. I would be grateful if you could show where this is the case please if we are trying to prove notability from this angle.
I believe the government prize likely satisfies criteria number 4 personally and if this is the case it should not be deleted, I accept full responsibility for missing that, when I noticed the article was written by the institute I only scanned it briefly and missed that detail:
It has been recognized as having historical or technical significance by reliable sources. However, the mere existence of reviews does not mean the app is notable. Reviews must be significant, from a reliable source, or assert notability.
A government prize likely qualifies it as technical significance by a reliable source.
As for the github stars and integration into other software packages I do not see this as relevant.EvilxFish (talk) 02:19, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! With your withdrawal I think it is unanimous for keep so I'll not reply further unless anyone brings up any additional issues. Thesamovar (talk) 15:54, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
User of Brian here. It is definitely notable:
  • As a student of neuroscience, I have personally learnt, taught, and used Brian simulator in my daily life for years, across four universities and research institutions in four countries - India, Switzerland, England, and France.
  • The original Brian simulator paper and Brian 2 papers have been cited over 1000 times, and definitely not just by the authors themselves, as claimed, see here and here.
  • It is well maintained and active as a community of users.
Sharbatc (talk) 11:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sharbatc: Thank for you the response, unfortunately the first bullet point is a WP:VER issue unless you can show using reliable sources that the software is taught. As for the second I don't think the software criteria covers number of citations but if there are multiple reviews of the software from reliable sources (not just a trivial mention) that would qualify it. The well maintained is unfortunately not part of the acceptance criteria. EvilxFish (talk) 02:23, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This software is widely used in computational neuroscience, as can be seen by it being taught and used alongside other notable software at international courses in this area, e.g., https://groups.oist.jp/cws/event/ocnc2023 and https://www.nengo.ai/summer-school/ Tfburns (talk) 13:21, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tfburns: neither of the links show that the software is taught as part of the courses only that it is used as part of the course. But I do think it goes some way to show it is widely used which may help prove one of the 4 criteria for software notability. EvilxFish (talk) 02:39, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No, this is definitely a notable and high-quality software, which still works and is being developed. It is a popular tool in computational neuroscience, both research and teaching. I do not see any reason for the article on Brian to be deleted; on the contrary.
(If it matters to anyone, I declare I have no working relationship with the authors, nor other conflict of interest.) Tomekjak (talk) 13:37, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Tomekjak: Simply stating it is notable does not make it so, nor does the fact that the software still works and is being developed. Popularity is difficult to prove which is why the notability criteria is very specific in what classifies it as notable. Please check the notability criteria for software. EvilxFish (talk) 05:02, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This package is the canonical package of its kind for simulating spiking neural nets, widely used for both education and research. Certainly notable. Deleting this would be deletionism run amok, dont let ur trigger finger get too itchy. Sneakers-the-rat (talk) 19:55, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Sneakers-the-rat: I assure you I am not "letting my trigger finger get too itchy". The whole point of these discussions is so someone who may not be too familiar with something after their own investigation can put forward the question of whether or not a particular article should be included based on wikipedia criteria. Those who are then more familiar with the area can also chime in and either agree or in this case disagree, for the most part so far, with the deletion of an article. EvilxFish (talk) 02:29, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Looking for sources, I think there's a review in a book here. It's hard to search for because it mostly turns up articles including people named Brian. @Sneakers-the-rat says it's a canonical package for spiking neural nets, so maybe that's in the book, if anyone can access it?
OIST appears to teach it (students are taught to do neuroscience using it, according to the site): self-published but I think that's valid for citing the existence of courses teaching it in terms of reliability.
Nengo I'm not sure counts: participants are taught to use "their favorite simulator." I feel like this would be a source for Brian being a significant package, but it's self-published. Mrfoogles (talk) 03:21, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely notable. In addition to Dendrify cited above, I've built a sizable piece of software tightly integrated with Brian as well: https://cleosim.readthedocs.io/ Kylej13 (talk) 14:49, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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