[deleted]
Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
41–50 of 73 posts
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#42And the result of the discussion is KEEP, just as it should be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles...
Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion. I did my part (adding a pile of references to places where Randal had been interviewed and presented as a notable authority), and between all our effort, we have a better article than before (hopefully).
Proof that - sometimes - this Wikipedia thing works the way it should. ;-)
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I'm just a footnote in the history of Perl, you're woefully ignorant.
Maybe more. I'm certainly no Perl historian. But if I were, and I were writing a book about it, I doubt I would include a lot of biographies.
If "author of first book about Perl" doesn't make your book, you're a pretty poor writer.
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I never really understood the effort to purge Wikipedia of vanity pages and the like. Well, think about it this way. I go to Wikipedia, create a page about myself and bits are cheap so nobody cares. There's nothing published about me, so none of the information there is reliable, but nobody's going to read it anyway, so nobody cares. Then I click over to Michael Jackson's page, scroll down to the "cultural influenc…
> Bits are cheap right? All the world's information is important. Why should anybody reading about Michael Jackson be deprived of my opinion about him? This is a pretty naïve argument. Take, for example, the recent brouhaha about Sarah Palin and her comments about Paul Revere. Barring a future where the comments have massively effected misconceptions in the common perception of Paul Revere (let's say, on the order of…
>This is a pretty naïve argument.
Well there are certainly different degrees of ``inclusionism'' but I have read plenty argue that absolutely nothing is too trivial for Wikipedia. I don't care who's wrong or right, but given the standard the Foundation is attempting to set for themselves, it's clear to me why ``deletionism'' rules.
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#45I recently read the article with interest. Before this HN thread. Is that sufficient?
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#46Yes. No reasonable person could even contest this. Randal Schwartz has been written about in reliable sources extensively, owing to an incident in which he was convicted for a felony involving breaking into Intel servers. •••• PEOPLE OF HN: ANYBODY CAN PROPOSE ANY ARTICLE ON WP FOR DELETION. THERE IS NO BAR FOR IT. •••• If you make comically stupid proposals, like "[Barack Obama] isn't notable and should be deleted",…
"Meanwhile, before anyone suggests that they've done the world a favor by directing attention to the AfD: canvassing support for a "keep" vote actually makes the admin's job harder."
I think that's all we can really hope for. In reality, you should say it makes it easier.
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#47If you look at the discussion you will see that Randal himself has made multiple contributions to the page, which is against Wikipedia's policy, and could be the perceived grounds for deletion. Aside from that, this is still only a proposal for deletion, like many others have said. I don't think this is any real cause for alarm.
Seriously? I've been very very careful to abide by WP:BIO. The only changes I've ever made are to add ISBNs or my photo. I even stay out of the talk page for the most part as well. I call "troll".
I have a problem with you calling people a "troll" when they are merely wrong in the particulars of WP policy. The fact of the matter is that your changes to that page have not been restricted to ISBNs and your repeated photo changes... and that's just the stuff that's in the history of the page with your name on it; it does't account for the advocacy you've made on the Talk page for the removal of the coverage of your felony conviction.
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#48If you look at the discussion you will see that Randal himself has made multiple contributions to the page, which is against Wikipedia's policy, and could be the perceived grounds for deletion. Aside from that, this is still only a proposal for deletion, like many others have said. I don't think this is any real cause for alarm.
Seriously? I've been very very careful to abide by WP:BIO. The only changes I've ever made are to add ISBNs or my photo. I even stay out of the talk page for the most part as well. I call "troll".
It's amazing how many people can be scandalized by the concept of someone touching the Wikipedia article about him... Marvin Minsky once entered Wikipedia and put a couple of things there. The reaction was like he had stormed naked in the middle of a funeral on a pogo stick.
And while I'm here... I am tired of all this the "trust" thing. Stuff is either verifiable or not, and if you haven't verified, you should remain suspicious of it for ever. Hoping to make Wikipedia safe for gullible people to read is a bit like trying to create languages like Java, with all sorts of mechanisms to try to prevent bad programmers from making bad code. It doesn't really work.
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#49As others also stated, I'm not sure why this is even an issue. He was infinitely instrumental in early web culture through his perl work - influencing an entire generation of developers (if only to drive some of them to PHP!) :)
What seems to be missing from Randal's wikipedia page is his karaoke skills. Perhaps those are best left to wikimedia instead.
Re: Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seriously? I've been very very careful to abide by WP:BIO. The only changes I've ever made are to add ISBNs or my photo. I even stay out of the talk page for the most part as well. I call "troll".
I have a problem with you calling people a "troll" when they are merely wrong in the particulars of WP policy. The fact of the matter is that your changes to that page have not been restricted to ISBNs and your repeated photo changes... and that's just the stuff that's in the history of the page with your name on it; it does't account for the advocacy you've made on the Talk page for the removal of the coverage of yo…
Making accusations such as he did without taking the time to verify them may not be purposely trolling, but it does have a very similar negative effect on the quality of the discussion.