Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael David Crawford - Wikipedia


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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 Delete. The consensus of established editors is clear, this biography does not meet WP:BIO due to a lack of coverage from reliable secondary sources. — Scientizzle 15:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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Michael David Crawford (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This person's biography doesn't meet notability guidelines. American Virgo 19:40, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This person has published writings on the Internet, has worked for Apple Computers, and is developing a popular open software project and should be well known enough to have a page on Wikipedia. Anonymous users are trying to get the page deleted and some users are vandalizing the page. An anonymous user placed the deletion template on the page. Can the admins do something about the vandalism? Thanks. --Thomas Hard 16:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not the place for a biography of ever single blogger on the internet. --American Virgo 17:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mr. Crawford is popular, his websites get 150,000 hits a month, about as much as Maddox. Michael Crawford is popular, and thus meets the criteria for notability. He is popular for his work at Apple Computers, for his free music, and for working on open source projects for the past fifteen years (more than just Ogg Frog, he wrote some BeOS and Mac OS applications). Plus his writings are published on the Internet. Plus you are adding in personal attacks and obscenities to the article to vandalize it. Now that your vandalism is being reverted, you want the article deleted. --Thomas Hard 17:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody (except kuro5hin users, apparently) has ever heard of him. Having a web page, and having been a rank-and-file Apple employee in the past, does not make him notable. He is the very definition of non-notable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.105.68.56 (talk) 17:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.105.68.56 (talk) [reply]
His music is very popular on BitTorrent, his writings have inspired others all over the Internet, he was key to the debugging of Mac OS during a time when it was unstable, his Ogg Frog program is very popular, we is a well known Mac OS and BeOS software developer, plus he gives live concert performances with his music. He is more popular than you realize. --Thomas Hard 17:35, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
His Ogg Frog program is unreleased. If you believe he is "very popular" and widely known, please substantiate this with citations of reliable sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.171.233 (talk) 17:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
He has published music in CD format on more than one publisher and he was published on Healthyplace.com at least one of his articles he contributes to Zoolib open source programming he wrote worldservices SDK for BeOS He got an article published on Linux load generators there are more, I am researching what I can. --Thomas Hard 17:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That material is all self-published; being a relentless self-promoter does not make you notable. Learn about notability and reliable sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.171.41 (talk) 17:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Most open source material is self published. If we apply that rule to Linus Torvalds his article would be deleted. The fact that it is noticeable is what you are ignoring here. Reliable sources are listed, and they were accepted by the publishers instead of rejected by the reliable web sites and their publishers and thus published. Please see WP:SELFPUB for more info. --Thomas Hard 18:10, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are ignoring the self publication guidelines themselves. There are numerous independent articles about Linus Torvalds. There are none whatsoever about Crawford. The only place on the Internet where Crawford is known is kuro5hin and some of them think you're him. --American Virgo 18:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My IP is not even in the same state as Mr. Crawfords's IP, Wikipedia admins can verify that. You are a well known vandal and have vandalizes this article several times, along with anon IPs. If Mr. Crawford is not notable, then why is his article constantly vandalized? --Thomas Hard 18:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Because kuro5hin is now primarily a community of trolls; your own username is Troll Hard. Constant vandalism, bickering and trolling is to be encouraged there, but it has no place on Wikipedia. The Crawford article serves no purpose except to attract this behaviour. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.187.147 (talk) 18:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is no trolling in the edits I wrote. I kept it NPOV and tried my best to keep the Wikipedia rules. If someone can do a better job of the article, they are welcomed to as long as they follow Wikipedia rules. I researched links to support the article. Vandals should be blocked, why they are not blocked, I have no idea. I welcome normal Wikipedia members to look at the article and decide for themselves. Anon IPS are going wild on the article, they are the ones who are trolls. --Thomas Hard 18:50, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Your entire article (and its accompanying kuro5hin diary, and this discussion itself) is a troll. It blatantly and uncontroversially fails the notability criterion. It seems unlikely that you (or anyone) could genuinely believe that Crawford is notable by Wikipedia standards, in which case you are either trolling or unable to interpret these simple guidelines; either situation should disqualify you from making editorial judgements or creating articles, especially about living people. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.105.52.112 (talk) 18:58, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're not assuming good faith. Troll Hard's diary simply states that he thinks Michael David Crawford in some way meets Wikipedia notability guidelines (by comparison to Maddox), that he is therefore writing an article about him and he would like more reference material from the man himself. What's trolling about that? Just because he has "Troll" in his username doesn't mean that the only thing he ever does is troll. 85.210.188.129 01:21, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have contributed non-Troll additions to various Wikipedia articles and even have cleaned up blankings and vandalism. It is all part of my Wikipedia history. I admit I am still learning how to write Wiki articles. Never an admin around when you need one, apparently. We need someone to rule on this. --Thomas Hard 19:06, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You apparently don't understand how Wikipedia works. It is not kuro5hin and no admin will "rule on this". Read Wikipedia:Guide_to_deletion#Deletion_process to see what happens next. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.105.51.251 (talk) 19:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Then why didn't you follow it and all of the rules needed for the deletion process? Anonymous users cannot request AFDs. Read it again. You also didn't place that template in user talk pages, etc. You are the one not following the rules here. Your AFD request is pure vandalism much like the other vandals are trying to do. --Thomas Hard 19:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Anonymous users demonstrably can request deletion, since I did. You read it again: "Anyone can make a nomination, though anonymous users can not complete the process without help from a logged-in user." (Emphasis theirs.) I made the nomination, American Virgo completed it by creating the AFD page. There's no requirement (or even suggestion) to put templates in user talk pages.
It says and I quote

It is generally considered civil to notify the good-faith creator and any main contributors of the articles that you are nominating for deletion. Do not notify bot accounts or people who have made only insignificant 'minor' edits. To find the main contributors, look in the page history or talk page of the article and/or use TDS' Article Contribution Counter. For your convenience, you may use {{subst:AFDWarningNew|Article title}} (for creators who are totally new users), {{subst:AFDWarning|Article title}} (for creators), or {{subst:Adw|Article title}} (for contributors or established users). But I see that American Virgo just put the template on my talk page after I posted about it not being there. American Virgo is one of the users vandalizing the article, that should be noted. --19:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

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Speaking of Kuro5hin, if Rusty Foster gets an article, Michael Crawford should deserve an article as well. All Rusty did was write the Scoop CMS which is still under development, and host Kuro5hin. Outside of Kuro5hin, there is no other reference to Rusty. Outside of Kuro5hin there are many references to Michael Crawford. Michael Crawford also gets easily confused with someone with the same name as his and that has given him some notoriety as well. --Thomas Hard 19:32, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]



If you believe that Rusty Foster is not sufficiently notable, please nominate that page for deletion; this discussion is about Michael David Crawford.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.27.169.36 (talk) 19:44, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reasoning is that if Rusty Foster is notable enough for Wikipedia and has less references than Michael Crawford, then it makes Michael Crawford notable enough for Wikipedia. I never said that Rusty Foster was not notable. If you feel so, have the deletion tag added to his article. If the community agrees that Michael Crawford is not noticeable enough, I will stand by that. But you are just an anonymous IP saying the same things over and over again, and not a credible member of Wikipedia or an admin, and your only edits seem to be the Michael Crawford article and deletion page? Why haven't you contributed to other articles if you claim to be such an expert? --Thomas Hard 19:54, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]




Alright, I'll quit. I'll let the chips fall as they may. Let the Wikipedia community decide this one, and not vandals with anonymous IPs that I am arguing with here. Just as long as someone else can revert their vandalism of the article in question. --Thomas Hard 20:13, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment Can somebody semi-protect the page so we know what the hell we're reading? Torc2 20:15, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    • 

  • Comment I want to say first that I'm doing my best to stay out of this debate.  But I want to point out that I'm well aware I'm quite a notorious fellow on the Internet.  I've written a lot of stuff that has pissed a lot of people off, and I admit that at times I've overstepped my boundaries.  There are a lot of folks - particularly at Kuro5hin - who can't stand me, and are taking the opportunity to wreak their vengeance here at wikipedia.  However, I want to point out that I have written quite a few articles and essays over the years.  In writing them I have always worked hard to help others, whether they be about politics, software development or mental illness. MichaelCrawford 20:24, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


There is a ton of external links to prove that Mr. Crawford is notable. More will be added as they are found. I think this qualifies as more than multiple. --Thomas Hard 02:16, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


    • Working hard to help others is laudable, writing a lot is unusual, but Wikipedia is not a roll call of the selfless and the prolific. It is a reference work for notable topics, and you obviously don't qualify. Your "notoriety" is confined to a single community site of minority interest; as Thomas Hard himself points out, even the genuinely quasi-famous founder of that site barely qualifies for a Wikipedia entry. This is no judgement of your character or worth, simply an objective analysis of your encyclopedic notability.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.31.110.220 (talk) 20:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • 

  • Delete only thing I can find about him anywhere is his self published songs and essays. Ridernyc 20:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Delete A blogger from Kuro5hin who constantly vandalizes Wikipedia articles to drive traffic to his server. His Contribs page should show that he has constantly editted various articles to insert links to his own site. Not only is he non-notable but he is also a vandal who is editting Wikipedia articles for his own selfish gain. I hope an Admin will see fit to put a stop to this activity as well. --24.83.94.74 21:57, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Keep Meets minimum requirements, links are citied in the external links section of the article, some to web sites that are not his, plus Rusty Foster has fewer references than Michael Crawford and they kept that page. Take into consideration that a lot of anon IPs are vandalizing the article in question, and also now voting on it and arguing over it. I suspect it is the same user hiding behind proxy servers that got vandalizations of the article reverted, so now he/she wants the article deleted. Take a good look at the article history and see such things added as Batman school of touching junk and other nonsense they keep adding to the article in order to help it get deleted faster. I could be wrong here, I admit that. But I think it meets minimum requirements. --Thomas Hard 22:42, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


*Weak Delete He's made contributions and published his work, but the article simply doesn't have solid secondary sources.  (I'd vote keep if there was any).  I'd like to see this vote given a full week to see if anybody comes up with anything. Torc2 23:12, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]



Keep Changing my vote based on this article, which seems to satisfy the secondary source requirement.  Torc2 03:26, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment A single mention on linux.com does not constitute notability, and even that article appears to be a single bite in response to an otherwise failed piece of self-promotion. TomStuart 09:05, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Delete. Non notable. Probably self promotion or intended for flaming/trolling. Operating 23:41, 11 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • 

  • Delete, non-notable per WP:BIO, no non-trivial coverage by reliable secondary sources. Google search returns few secondary independent sources.  Dreadstar † 02:09, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • 

  • Comment It doesn't seem right to me that my notability should be solely determined by whether others have cited my work.  Shouldn't my writing, in particular, stand on it's own merits, and be judged by having all of you read it?  All but a few of my publications are freely available on the web, and were abundantly linked by Thomas Hard in his article about me.  I also want to point out that it's actually the case that thousands of people have written positively about my essays - but their comments are necessarily private because they were responding to my essays on mental illness, and discussing their own, or that of their loved ones.  I have also received a number of emails from mental health workers, who told me that Living with Schizoaffective Disorder helped them to understand their schizoaffective patients in a way that all their years of school and professional training was unable to.  Finally, I was told that L.w.S.D. is on a reading list that the California State Department of Mental Health distributes to its employees. MichaelCrawford 03:13, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


That's exactly what Wiki notability is, though.  Being on Wiki isn't a reflection on the quality of what you've written, the music you've composed, the work you've done, the people you've helped, or the life you've led.  It's based on how all that's been absorbed and acknowledged by society and by your cultural and vocational peers.  You can't work your way into Wikipedia, only other people can put you into Wikipedia.  Baby Jessica has a Wikipedia article, not because she fell down a well, but because the world stopped and stared at the TV until she got out; if I fell down a well, I sure as hell wouldn't get a Wiki article just because of it.  Torc2 04:47, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Wikipedia does not allow editors to "judge" works. That is considered original research. Wikipedia needs attributions to independent sources to judge the quality of a work based on what secondary sources have written about it. --Dhartung | Talk 10:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]




  • Delete. Textbook non-notable. I can't see any substantial coverage by reliable sources. One mention on linux.com (apparently as PR?) is insufficient. We can't have an article for every Linux community member. TomStuart 09:01, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


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  • Delete. I can see no evidence of notability here beyond being a personality known primarily on a single website. Fails WP:BIO. --Dhartung | Talk 10:54, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • 

  • Delete Fails WP:BIO. This is not a negative reflection on the subject as a person, or on the quality of his music or writing. It is nice that "He has devoted his life to learning new things and helping other people out." So have I and so have many other Wikipedians, and many of us have faced challenges, too, and also fail WP:BIO. Edison 16:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • 

  • Keep: the references to MDC's writing on mental illness given above by Thomas Hard show that the minimum level of notability for a biography can be verified. Let's work these into the article itself. 85.210.188.129 01:23, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Thank you, this article was marked for deletion before the verified references could be added to it. It was only like two hours since the article was created and the AFD was added to it. I think we need to give it some more time to find or add in reliable references. Like I said, it meets the bare minimum. Which few people here understand what that means. --Thomas Hard 21:56, 13 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The article was quickly marked for deletion because it is instantly recognizable as a non-notable biography to any competent Wikipedia user. If you need to spend days digging frantically for additional references, all of which subsequently turn out to be just as trivial and unreliable as the initial ones, the topic is by definition non-notable. As WP:BIO itself says: "Trivial coverage of a subject by secondary sources may not be sufficient to establish notability."; "Autobiography and self-promotion are not the routes to having an encyclopaedia article. The barometer of notability is whether people independent of the subject itself have actually considered the subject notable enough that they have written and published non-trivial works that focus upon it." It's you who is repeatedly failing to understand this policy in particular and the concept of an encyclopedia in general. You may add another hundred Google results to the page if you like, but as long as none of them are "published non-trivial works that focus upon" MDC (and you've now demonstrated very clearly that no such works exist), they have no effect upon his notability or the validity of this article. 86.0.107.108 13:01, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I guess we have to disagree, you claim that links from MSN about MDC, aka Microsoft are trivial because Microsoft is an unknown company and an unreliable source. You also claim that Linux.com is another trivial web site and that nobody has ever heard of it and thus it is an unreliable source. You also claim that well known mental heath web sites that cite and review and use MDC's works are also trivial because mental health is trivial and Wikipedia does not cover such things. If there was a link from the BBC, or Wired, I'd guess you'd also call those sites trivial as well? Which seems to be your case here. --Thomas Hard 14:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Read and understand more carefully: it's the coverage itself that's trivial, not the sources. WP:BIO asks for "a credible independent biography", "widespread coverage over time in the media", "demonstrable wide name recognition from reliable sources" or "in depth, independent, coverage in multiple publications showing a widely recognized contribution to the enduring historical record" -- in short, enough substantial coverage to make it even remotely possible that somebody might want to look the person up in an encyclopedia. Brief, one-off, unremarkable references or links from any source, however prestigious, are explicitly insufficient; this is precisely how the quality and integrity of an encyclopedia is maintained, so that it doesn't become a useless who's-who of third-rate nobodies. Obviously you'd like for this to be a matter of (your) judgement or opinion, but unfortunately (for you) it isn't. 86.0.123.90 18:10, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]



 -- 66.238.233.150 (talk ·  contribs ·  block log) is an open proxy from the Tor anonymity network. -- zzuuzz (talk) 21:08, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Keep, Michael Crawford is well notable in the open source music community because of his free music downloads portal page. User 86.0.123.90 is a well known hater of Michael Crawford and also a vandal of other Wikis, I think 86.0.123.90 works for the RIAA and is trying to get free music to stop. His IP is a well known RIAA source. 82.135.15.177 19:07, 14 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


If he is notable ("widespread coverage over time in the media", "wide name recognition from reliable sources", "in depth, independent, coverage in multiple publications") in the "open source music community", please demonstrate this; your opinion is not relevant so asserting it repeatedly without evidence is pointless. Jonathan Coulton is notable according to these criteria, for example, but there is nothing here to suggest that Crawford is. 88.211.98.3 08:28, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]



The Heymann standard doesn't seem to apply here. The editing is rudimentary at best. There is little real content on the page. Case in point, current edit has a link to  some user's del.icio.us bookmarks[1] as evidence of MC's popularity. The majority of this article is fluff. fluxrad 00:20, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment so far every attempt to prove notability on this has just amde it look worse in my eyes.  Really how can people claim 2 people saving a link on del.lico.us is notable.  I can show you articles.  JUst becaue you can find a long lists of links has nothing to do with notabilty.  Anyone who has used the net can do the same.02:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ridernyc (talk • contribs) 


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Is this a vote, a debate, a discussion, or a WWE Professional Wrestling Match? At this point I am quite confused. We seem to have a lot of anon IPs, a lot of personal attacks, a lot of fallacies, and a lot of haters. While some agree that Mr. Crawford is notable, we have others claiming he is not notable. I admit I am new here, and I thought Mr. Crawford was notable. I admit I am new to Wikipedia and I am trying to learn the guidelines here. I myself had to take a break from it for family issues unrelated to the article in question. The main argument seems to be what is a reliable link, if it is or isn't trivial, and we seem to be debating over that. I respect other people's opinions that Mr. Crawford is not notable, but I happen to disagree with that opinion and so apparently do other people as well. Can't we just settle this like reasonable adults in some civilized manner? There are no need for personal attacks, fallacies, etc. Can we keep it clean now and give peace a chance? --Thomas Hard 02:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]



Good idea. The main thing for you to understand, as a new Wikipedia user, is that notability has nothing (directly) to do with links. You're tying yourself in knots trying to find more and more Google results to substantiate Crawford's notability, but these only diminish his standing because every internet user in the world can potentially have hundreds of links from blogs, bookmark sites, link directories, discussion forums and review pages. As David Weinberger said: "on the Web, everyone is famous to 15 people". Consider how many people in the world are in bands, for example; all of these people release albums and regularly perform to hundreds of fans, but a vanishingly small percentage of them have risen to high enough prominence to be considered notable, even if their recordings and performances have been reviewed many times on many web sites. Wikipedia would quickly become useless if it had a page for every band, every journalist, every writer, every blogger, every programmer, no matter how good those people may be and how much their circle of friends may love them. The internet is so democratic (especially since "web 2.0" took hold) that you can't demonstrate notability by accumulating web pages that simply link to or briefly mention the subject. Becoming a positive contributor to Wiklpedia involves learning to disregard your own opinions ("but he's notable to me!") and look objectively at topics in a global context. If you can accept this fundamental editorial principle and move on, rather than continuing to battle against it and treat it as a "debate" or an "opinion", the discussion will benefit greatly. 88.211.98.3 08:26, 16 October 2007 (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. 



    

  1. ^ sorormystica's bookmarks tagged with "schizophrenia" on del.icio.us

    2.