Wiki143:Articles for deletion/Why the lucky stiff (2nd nomination)

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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 no consensus. This page has been subject to numerous !votes from new editors and anonymous IPs, most of whom are voting keep. However, sources have since been added, asserting notability. His claim to fame is as a published author, and whether or not it is well presented, it is clear that he has some notability in that area. Now for the deletion debate itself. Going by the number of keeps, there is an overwhelming majority wishing to retain this article. However, this is not what decides it, and several did not add helpful comments to the debate, so have been discarded. However, some of the delete votes were also unsubstantial. When there is notability, and there is a chance of improvement, the article should be kept and improved. This is conditional that the article actually will be improved, and not left. I urge those involved to work together to establish a solid article, with more sources. That way, it would satisfy our policies, and may avoid a third deletion debate. PeterSymonds (talk) 15:37, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Why the lucky stiff

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AfDs for this article:

    The given page title was invalid or had an inter-language or inter-wiki prefix.

    It may contain one or more characters that cannot be used in titles.

Template:La (delete) – (View log)

There do not appear to be any reliable sources with which to verify the content of the article. Regardless of how well regarded the person is in a community "If no reliable, third-party sources can be found for an article topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." (from WP:V). All the sources I can find are blogs or personal websites of people and companies he is associated with, these cannot be considered a reliable base for an article. Guest9999 (talk) 20:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete. Almost totally unsourced, the only one being page that no longer exists, so no assertion of notability. Most of the article is external links to projects with even less notability. Rehevkor (talk) 21:21, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete, fails WP:NN, WP:RS, & WP:V.  Esradekan Gibb  "Talk" 00:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 00:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per the above. Fails WP:NN, WP:RS, & WP:V. Jasynnash2 (talk) 10:33, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain The notion of deleting _why's entry is ludicrous. He is one of the two or three most visible presences in the Ruby community, author of Shoes (see also) and unholy and Camping and the Poignant Guide to Ruby. Tim Bray (talk) 16:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. First of all, I do not believe Mr. Stiff is sufficiently notable to warrant a Wikipedia article. Specifically, he has not been the subject of non-trivial coverage by reliable, third-party published sources. Second, even if this was a case of borderline notability, in such cases we often respect the subject's request to delete the article. — Satori Son 16:48, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Retain: That was back in January 2007. Also, an hour-long keynote at a conference for a popular web framework is notable in my books. Not to mention the illustrations in a book on a programming language by the creator of that language. Could have picked anyone else to add some illustrations to the book, but they picked _why because he can draw and he's a notable figure in the Ruby community. --OMouse (talk) 17:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain I second Tim Bray's comment. I'm not a Ruby developer (I'm a Java developer) and nonetheless I know _why is one of the most influential individuals in the Ruby community. If the article needs to be improved, good. That's reasonable. That it should be deleted is ridiculous. D. Shaw (talk) 16:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Sigh blatant ballot stuffing here http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/info/6n3xf/comments/ --Jonathan Williams (talk) 17:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Really? Because so far the only ballot stuffing I see is the mindless repetition of "WP:NN, WP:RS, & WP:V" over and over again. Whereas the Programming Reddit site is actually full of people who can vouch for the actual notability of the person in question - and are active Wikipedia users to boot. --Jeresig (talk) 17:39, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    • The reddit link does not solicit votes or encourage ballot stuffing. All it is asking for is for people to find more reputable references and add them to the page. One commenter explicitly says this, "What citations are really needed? Go to his site and download his book or some of his software. It can't possibly be hard to find hoards of people who have learned a lot from him or he's otherwise inspired." No ballot stuffing here and I am upset that I am being accused of this (I'm the original submitter of the reddit link) --OMouse (talk) 17:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
      • I should have referred to it as Canvassing; I apologize and revise my comments. --Jonathan Williams (talk) 19:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
        • And the fact that it was mentioned on a programming-discussion site led me here to leave comments citing verifiable notability. Bringing a discussion like this to the attention of people familiar with the subject matter (i.e., people more apt to know and be able to explain why a subject is or is not notable) is not a bad thing, and should not automatically be labeled as such. Ubernostrum (talk) 07:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Here too, sigh... --Rory096 23:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
      • You say this as if it's a bad thing that people familiar with the subject actually brought up verifiable information and started improving the article. Ubernostrum (talk) 01:59, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
        • Improving the article is good, coming to AfD and stacking it in favor of keeps with the same reasoning over and over, not so much. --Rory096 02:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain _why is incredibly notable, and influential, within the Ruby programming community. He is a hacker of the purest form - creating works out of necessity and practicality, completely influencing and driving the entirety of the Ruby sphere. He's given a number of talks or performances (and not just random user group talks but major talks at major conferences) Keynote Presentations at RailsConf 2006, Concert at SXSWi 2006, and OSCON 2005 Presentation. Additionally he is the sole (or primary) creator of three separate projects which all have their own Wikipedia entries - each of which have seen considerable press: Hackety Hack (Press), Camping (microframework) (Press), and Why's_(poignant)_Guide_to_Ruby (Press). It would be an absolute travesty to have the page removed at this point, especially considering the sheer breadth and influence of work that he has performed. --Jeresig (talk) 17:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain _why is, as jeresig says, "incredibly notable and influential". A quick look at the sheer volume of pages [1] referencing him should dispell doubts otherwise. Personally, working in a Rails shop, I can vouch he comes up in conversations about Ruby/Rails even though none of my coworkers have met him. --AlanH (talk) 17:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    • That might be because you work in a Rails shop ; ) None of my coworkers have heard of him and they are all computational physicists at one of the world's top research universities who know one or two things about programming. Caek (talk) 20:07, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. While I don't share Jeresig's enthusiasm, _why is sufficiently notable for an article. From WP:BIO: "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by their peers or successors." Specific important works he's been involved in are discussed on the first failed AfD. MoraSique (talk) 17:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain Besides producing original and thought provoking work like Why's_(poignant)_Guide_to_Ruby and Hackety Hack, _why's personality and philosophies have a significant effect on the Ruby community, and also go a long way to forming the "public" impression of the Ruby community. If Wikipedia has an article about Ruby, it should have an article about _why. Klondike (talk) 18:32, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete, fails WP:NN, not least because sourced articles about the author (as distinct from his works) do not seem to exist. Caek (talk) 19:57, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain per MoraSique. Dori (Talk • Contribs) 20:37, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep The thing to do with a poorly-sourced article on a known notable person/topic is to turn it into a well-sourced article on a known notable person/topic. Ubernostrum (talk) 21:29, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete, the person is an online author, thus the heavy Google traffic. But not all authors are notable, and any blogger would have thousands of Google hits. The only reason to keep is the claim about being a "major person in the Ruby community." However, this person did not invent Ruby, nor any significant piece of it. The whole thing smells like a vanity page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bex (talk • contribs) 23:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment: If you look at the rest of the page you will see that Why has worked on many valuable programming projects. One of his projects is included in the standard library of a notable language. Also, there are many people who are only considered notable by a certain subset of people, should we delete their articles too? OMouse (talk) 04:10, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment: The subject of the article is listed as a contributor to the book The Ruby Programming Language and cited as a notable domain expert in Advanced Rails, both from O'Reilly (about as notable a publisher as there is in this field), has been an invited keynote speaker at RailsConf and portions of his self-published book have been anthologized in a notable collection of software writing (The Best Software Writing I: Selected and Introduced by Joel Spolsky, from Apress). None of this information is particularly hard to find for someone who's genuinely trying to improve Wikipedia content. Ubernostrum (talk) 07:15, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep and expand: Per Ubernostrum, unless there is a wikipedia policy to delete Biographies when requested, per here —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shabda (talk • contribs) 13:18, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Also Deleting an author whose works have three wikipedia entries, You got to be kidding me! Shabda (talk) 13:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • DELETE - This is just a vanity page and some random guy and his random projects are totally non notable and would never appear in a real encyclopedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.51.216.236 (talk) 13:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Except for the fact that, at least, 3 of his projects have dedicated Wikipedia pages (Hackety Hack, Camping (microframework), and Why's_(poignant)_Guide_to_Ruby) - instantly giving him notability. Unless you're arguing that all three of those projects are non-notable. In which case you should probably nominate all of them for deletion as well. --Jeresig (talk) 15:44, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep. The article is better sourced now. The fact that it hadn't been done before might be related to the fact that _why is very secretive and prefers to promote his work than his own person. Looking at the votes, it seems to me that the people calling the article a "vanity page" are not familiar with the topic at hand (programing, especially in the ruby language). Zorbid (talk) 14:02, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: why is at least as significant as any web comic publisher and is an important contributor to the Ruby community. Tadman (talk) 14:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep and get on with our lives --- This article has 2+ years of edits from a variety of editors with WP accounts. The "delete" arguments say "V*nity", which is not a valid argument, violates a WP guideline, and offers evidence that they haven't even looked at the edit history. Meanwhile, the person who wrote tryruby.hobix.com, which is the first place anybody who wants to learn Ruby is pointed to, has a "v*nity" discussion on REDDIT.COM because of this AfD. There's no chance the AfD carries. Let's close it now. tqbf 69.17.73.234 (talk) 14:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - per caek - while his projects shown on wikipedia are certainly notable, he is unnotable as a subject himself. Many open source contributers have similar levels of importance, notoriety and contribution, but are also unworthy of inclusion. If someone updates the article so that it includes distinguishing personal characteristics - see Larry Wall or Hans Reiser for examples - keep. --Jonathan Williams (talk) 18:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    • "Distinguishing personal characteristics" isn't an AfD argument. "No assertion of notability" is, but this article clearly asserts notability. "No reliable sources" would be, but this article is better sourced than many other articles now, and obviously clears the bar. 69.17.73.234 (talk) 18:14, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    • No tangible data supports what distinguishes _why, except his whole production. He does little to promote himself, and he never gives interviews. He's a code artist. Think of him as the Salvador Dali of the coding world, without the attitude. He's as talented, as creative, and as prolific (but not a tad bit egocentric). His discipline is more obscure, and the audience is therefore much more limited. (Yes, I'm a fan) Zorbid (talk) 18:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: Also please notice that anyone interested in programming instantly recognises _why. I can see at least three people whose views on this should be considered weighty. User:TimBray who is prominent software personality Tim_Bray, Jeresig who is the creator of JQuery and Ubernostrum who is relase manager of Django_(web_framework) Shabda (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 19:03, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
    That's true, but it's also not a valid argument --- see WP:ATA. The reason this AfD should close --- now --- is because the subject clearly has reliable sources that verify notability. 69.17.73.234 (talk) 19:09, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. _why is as notable as [Mark Pilgrim]. Both are authors of notable computer books. --91.177.137.180 (talk) 05:04, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. I wish we had {{soaddthesourcesalready}} =) --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 20:10, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy Keep. Clearly notable. Not a good article, but the pseudonymous _why_ is a difficult subject. This is the sort of deletion controversy that calls Wikipedia into disrepute. per User:Tqbf. MarkBernstein (talk) 22:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain: _why helped many people learn about the Ruby programming language though his books (the "Poignant Guide" and "Nobody Knows Shoes"), and his 5-10 years of online publishing. His projects seem to always be referenced not just by name "Hpricot", but prefixed with the author's name since it is perceived that this gives the project more authority (_why's Hpricot). He is referenced in real-world books, and has been invited to provide his drawings several books. Dr Nic Williams
  • Speedy keep Clearly Notable, needs cleanup, but cleanup is not a reason for afd. seems to have more reliable and verifiable sources than most articles --Buridan (talk) 23:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep, clearly notable. --Pmsyyz (talk) 01:34, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain: although I happened to come here from Tim Bray's site, I also periodically stumble upon _Why's WP page via one of his many projects, and I often find something new linked to it (such as the 'unholy' meld of Ruby and Python that I found tonight). I continually read the latest postings in the Ruby arena and just as continually run into stuff written by _Why. He is amazingly prolific for someone who isn't making a high-profile career in the Ruby world. DHH and Zed Shaw and Jamis Buck and Defunkt (errTheBlog) and Josh Susser (has many through blog) and Obie Fernandez all have their places on the web and have made significant contributions to the Ruby world, but they clearly have an aim of furthering their own career (OK, except maybe Zed Shaw who does his best to limit his career - but I digress). What is at least as important for me about the _Why page is the ability for _Why (and presumably others) to remain somewhat on the web while still generating significant content. The fact that all the citations are to electronic forums that *could* be faked are forged doesn't mean that they *are* faked or forged. For those of us that know Ruby to any extent it seems clear that there is only one person writing this code attributed to _Why - it has a very distinctive style that gets the job done in a very succinct, even terse, manner - yet usually has huge comments explaining the magic behind it. The code always takes a road-less-traveled approach, often (apparently) just to see where it leads. The Camping framework is not better or worse than Rails - just different; Rails gets the most functionality out of Ruby but Camping gets more functionality per-byte-of-code than Rails. Yes I'm a fan of _Why, but I'm also a fan of the *mystery* of how he maintains his anonymity - which seems like a good addition to the page. It seems like the page in question is still in its infancy - if you don't find it interesting yet, just don't read it.
    • Comment The lone fact that a programmer has fans (for his code) is IMO notable (I know the wikipedia policies may disagree, but still...). I wish this was covered in a "verifiable source"... Zorbid (talk) 08:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep, missing citations seem to have been fixed. PaulBoxley (talk) 07:48, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Retain: Dude's now famous, well done deletionists--Indiedan (talk) 09:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete: I dare you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.236.210.124 (talk) 12:03, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: Published author who has been referenced extensively by notable peers. Jivlain (talk) 13:14, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: the number of infrequent contributers showing up here and the number of SineBot posts speaks to the effect of the canvassing. --Jonathan Williams (talk) 13:24, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
    It's the closing admin's job to sort out valid arguments from invalid arguments. Anybody who's spent more than a week working on AfD's knows how to deal with canvassing. Jonathan, several people have made policy-based arguments for a speedy keep. You're pushing to delete an article that has multiple reliable sources. Can you address the arguments now, please? User_talk:Tqbf 99.132.135.193 (talk) 15:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
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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