
Is Randal L Schwartz notable enough for Wikipedia? - russellallen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randal_L._Schwartz
======
tptacek
Yes. 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", an admin will shut you down. But otherwise, if even an
iota of thought is required to make the decision, it will go to AfD and get
shouted down.

This AfD is not going close "deleted"; by WP's own rules, it basically can't
be deleted. This isn't newsworthy. If we had an HN story any time anyone made
a misguided AfD posting, that's all we'd ever talk about here.

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. It muddies the issue. It means that every well-
reasoned comment will carry a subtext of "maybe this is a sockpuppeted
comment". Not a win.

And: before anyone complains about the damage done to the encyclopedia by the
big ugly "this page might get deleted" tag: this article _actually is poorly
sourced and needs improvement_. WP's immune response to non-notable articles
is going to end up improving this particular article by inciting WP nerds to
dredge up the (numerous) news stories that reference him.

 _PS: Not for nothing, but WP's coverage of Randal Schartz is wanting, in that
it drastically pares back what is notable about him (his felony hacking
conviction) in favor of what he is "locally famous" for (his Perl advocacy).
This is a consequence of a very vocal FORS contingent that watches that page._

~~~
ErrantX
If it drags in my interest I might try to rescue the article tomorrow. The
lack of sources at the moment means it runs a reasonable chance of people
mindlessly !voting delete.

(but to echo tptacek; if you are going to follow this link and comment on the
proposed deletion ''please'' take a moment to review the notability policies
and make a sensible, valid argument rather than the "this is ridiculous" sort
that has already appeared. If anything, that sort of thing usually goes
against the article)

------
JoshTriplett
Every time I think Wikipedia couldn't slide any further into craziness, I see
something like this. Nobody ever seems to step back and ask "what exactly are
we accomplishing by campaigning to get content deleted?".

Somewhere between "preventing spam, vandalism, and vanity pages" and "delete
everything" there's a line; the exact placement of that line seems non-
obvious, but individual cases like this seem incredibly obvious (and spam,
vandalism, and vanity pages seem rather obvious as well, so it works in both
directions).

~~~
tptacek
Respectfully, you don't know what you're talking about. Nothing crazy has
happened here. The whole point of Wikipedia is that anyone can do stuff like
"propose that WP delete a page". Note that the page hasn't been deleted yet.

When Randal Schwartz is actually _deleted_ from Wikipedia, then you have an
argument.

~~~
Zigurd
You do realize that leading off with "Respectfully, you don't know what you
are talking about" isn't reducing the image of insularity Wikipedia has
acquired? It says "If you don't get up to speed on the obscure processes, such
as that anyone can nominate an article for deletion, you can't participate in
the dialogue." For some reason, unexplained to outsiders, this is a feature,
not a bug. At least recognize that Wikipedia is the odd subculture, not the
people critiquing Wikipedia.

~~~
tptacek
I felt bad for telling him he didn't know what he's talking about. But the
fact is, he doesn't. And however "insular" you think that makes Wikipedia,
note than I am not a WP'er. I find WP insular and obnoxious for reasons
entirely unrelated to its (I think reasonable) notability guideline.

------
jamesbritt
This is a Web site that thinks it appropriate to offer a synopsis for every
episode of Burn Notice. There's a page for each season, plus a page for the
show itself.

Why is the inclusion of Randal even an issue?

"Reasons for deletion

...

Any other content not suitable for an encyclopedia"

I like Burn Notice, it's fun and entertaining. But does it need to be in an
encyclopedia? More so than Randal L Schwartz? Talk about intellectual mob
rule[0].

0:
[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/07/11/110711fa_fact_kahn)

~~~
JoshTriplett
I frequently use Wikipedia as a source of information on a TV series, and that
includes an episode list and synopses. If people might want to look it up, why
should they have to move that content elsewhere to one of the various TV
summary sites, most of which suck a lot more than Wikipedia (with the
exception of special cases for shows popular enough to have dedicated sites,
like Memory Alpha).

~~~
jamesbritt
* I frequently use Wikipedia as a source of information on a TV series, ... *

So do I, and it's quite handy. But if Wikipedia is to be the host for what is,
essentially, mass-media trivia, then why would it not also be the host for
arguably less mundane content, such as a page on Randal Schwartz. Or me, for
that matter?

It just depends on how Wikipedia's owners decide to handle it. But they're
currently defining themselves as an encyclopedia.

------
m0nastic
The one takeaway I see from these "Wikipedia article deletion stories" is that
as time progresses, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain the
notability requirement as society progresses from a smaller number of more
authoritative sources to a large number of less authoritative ones.

------
tzs
I've just added my "keep" to the discussion. The following is OT, but I'm
curious:

Does anyone else find the fact that the Wikipedia talk pages are wiki pages to
be about the stupidest thing ever? Wikis are designed for occasional edits,
not active discussions. It's very annoying to try to save a comment and find
that it is rejected because someone else got an edit in while you were
editing.

It seems clear to me that the talk pages should use an HN or Reddit like
system, not wiki pages. Or am I missing something?

~~~
pbreit
Service idea: pan-web Disqus-like discussion widget that works like HN.

------
WardCunningham
There would be no wiki without Randal. I learned all I knew about Perl from
his book. -- Ward Cunningham

------
bprater
One of Randal's additions to the world is the "Schwartzian transform",
something I remember using extensively a decade ago when I was doing web
programming in Perl:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwartzian_transform>

------
lincolnwebs
It's not worth the time to fight Wikipedia deleting its own content. I've seen
more notable pages get deleted by petulant administrators. The bureaucracy of
that site stinks more than the US Senate.

------
mindcrime
And the result of the discussion is KEEP, just as it should be.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles...](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Randal_L._Schwartz)

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. ;-)

------
T_S_
I recently read the article with interest. Before this HN thread. Is that
sufficient?

------
andrewcooke
heh. i think this is a generational thing. he was pretty damn central to the
early perl culture, but i'm not surprised most people these days haven't heard
of him. i guess the question is - to what extent should wikipedia cull entries
for people who are no longer as famous as they one were?

to give some idea of relative fame, i'd say he was no less famous in his
community that, say, paul buchheit is these days.

[and i'd like to know more details about how the prosecution ended up being
expunged - whatever that means. he did time, right?]

~~~
mbateman
Notability is not temporary:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Notability...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability#Notability_is_not_temporary)

~~~
apike
Although notability is not temporary in theory, Wikipedia has always (and
probably always will) suffer from presentism. Things that are important today
get a disproportionate amount of attention. It is maybe easier to evaluate
something's historical notability with the benefit of hindsight.

That said, I never really understood the effort to purge Wikipedia of vanity
pages and the like.

~~~
dwyer
> 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 influence" section and chime in that...

* [[C Dwyer]] is a big fan of and has been heavily influenced in his daily life by Jackson. He was really sad when Jackson died. [<http://caseysite.com/blog/i-love-mj>]

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?

Clearly, there's a point where this becomes ridiculous. Notability has to be
resolved sooner or later, so why not resolve it from the start? What makes
Wikipedia intriguing is that articles can be interlinked to expand on and
enhance each other. If an article cannot benefit other articles, much less
does more harm than good, why include it?

I'm not a Wikipedia editor nor much of a Wikipedia user and I don't personally
care how they conduct their business. If I were in charge of maintaining the
integrity of something like Wikipedia, however, let's just say it would focus
a whole lot more on quality than quantity than it currently does.

Would I include an article about Randal L. Schwartz in a general purpose
encyclopedia? No. Would I include it in an encyclopedia about computer history
and computer science? No. An encyclopedia about the history of Perl? Maybe a
footnote.

~~~
RandalSchwartz
If I'm just a footnote in the history of Perl, you're woefully ignorant.

~~~
dwyer
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.

~~~
RandalSchwartz
If "author of first book about Perl" doesn't make your book, you're a pretty
poor writer.

~~~
dwyer
Nothing I said was meant to be taken personally, so please stop with the ad
hominems. I apologize if I offended you. I didn't mean to imply that your life
and work are not important. I just don't feel like every single biography is
worthy of ``the sum of human knowledge'', even if that person's work is. I
guess that's not a fashionable opinion to have in the post-Twitter era,
especially on a website where people submit their .vimrc files as potential
``hacker news'', but it is my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

~~~
RandalSchwartz
It's not about being taking personally. It's just a fact: I wrote (with Larry
Wall) the first book about Perl. And then the second book about Perl, which
became the seminal teaching guide. If that doesn't deserve a note in the Perl
history, you're confused.

------
mgkimsal
As 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.

------
andrewguenther
If 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.

~~~
RandalSchwartz
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".

~~~
tptacek
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.

~~~
burgerbrain
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.

------
drallison
Yes. Over time, if Perl is no longer significant either practically or
historically, perhaps his wikipedia entry could be archived as "ancient
history", but for the moment it is relevant.

------
joh6nn
the whole "notability" requirement on WP really bothers me; it's not like this
is britannica, where there's a limited number of pages to cram all this info
into. i'd much rather have a definitive resource, than one that only covered
"notable" material.

------
warmfuzzykitten
I would be offended, too, but when I went to his page I see no signs it is
under threat of deletion. Tempest in a teapot fugit?

------
bugsy
The real question to ask is why does anyone take wikipedia serious as a source
these days? I would trust Schwartz's opinions on Peruvian copper mining,
quantum physics, square dancing, or any other subject long before I would
trust any article on wikipedia because Schwartz has more credibility.

~~~
carussell
> The real question to ask is why does anyone take wikipedia serious as a
> source these days?

Who's saying you should? And what's different about "these days" versus, I
don't know, 2005? Feel free to substitute there your favorite year from any
point on the timeline of Wikipedia nostalgia.

Edit: Goddamn. I really hate to do it, but challenges, please?

The notion that you can/should/could ever trust Wikipedia is some weird
inference that has been tacked on by uninvolved bystanders following
Wikipedia's success, and does not originate from within Wikipedia. Wikipedia's
stance on the reputability of itself and other tertiary sources is as well
documented as the limitations of liability in GNU software.

~~~
pbreit
If I understand it correctly (I think Wikipedia is trustworthy therefore I am
stupid), I believe this is a fairly minority opinion.

~~~
carussell
What?

~~~
pbreit
I think the vast majority of internet and wikipedia users find it to be a
credible source.

~~~
carussell
Let's be clear. We are talking about whether one should "take wikipedia
serious _as a source_ " (emphasis mine). You invoke "source", too, but I'm
unsure if your focus is on how reliably accurate Wikipedia is, or if you
really do mean to say what you say.

Even assuming yours is the saner of the two--that your "trustworthy" and
"credible" mean to say that Wikipedia is reliably accurate--well, I'll first
note that this was not the topic at hand.

Since you've appealed to common opinion twice, can I presume that your own use
of Wikipedia is also a typically casual one? That is, that you rarely if ever
make a point to verify the claims made in articles by:

i) Cross-checking the cited sources, and/or

ii) Independently verifying things in some other way

If I'm permitted to make that presumption, then for my second point I'll note
that _unless you've done these things, the statement that Wikipedia is
"trustworthy" and "credible" is a vacuous one_.

I'll also note that I deliberately made a point of saying _who_ 's holding
this opinion when I wrote that it's a "weird inference that has been tacked on
by uninvolved bystanders following Wikipedia's success, and does not originate
from within Wikipedia". There is, I think, a fairly realistic view of
Wikipedia within the Wikipedia community, especially from those who were
involved early. The "vast majority of the internet and wikipedia users" are
not Wikipedia editors.

\--

To revisit the point I made in the edit to my initial reply to bugsy, I'll say
that there's a reason every page on Wikipedia links to a page that says the
following,[1] the formatting of which I can neither accurately reproduce nor
adequately convey here:

> _WIKIPEDIA MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF VALIDITY_

> [...]

> That is not to say that you will not find valuable and accurate information
> in Wikipedia; much of the time you will. However, _Wikipedia cannot
> guarantee the validity of the information found here_.

(emphasized in the original)

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:General_disclaimer>

