Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andrew C. Stone

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. A lot of the arguments in this discussion have been ones that aren't relevant to deletion discussions. After disregarding these arguments, however, there is still a weak consensus to keep the article. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 13:41, 10 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Andrew_C._Stone[edit]

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Apparently non-notable; the only source I can find is the one in the article, which isn't enough per WP:BIO.

EDIT: After the new sources that have been added due to the (now hatted) discussion below, I'm changing my implicit delete to a weak keep, though I'd like to keep the AfD open to get other opinions, as I think it's a borderline case. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Extended conversation with article author

What constitutes notability? - gjp. I had understood it to mean any meaningful contribution to a field of knowledge or endeavor. Is a one million plus units sold for an application not notable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregoryptm (talk • contribs) 14:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, Gregory, I'll expand on your talk page. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 14:30, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Writ Keeper: I do have some additional external sources for Andrew Stone's notability, including articles in MacWeek and Business Week. Let me compile those first before you delete, okay? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregoryptm (talk • contribs) 15:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry, this discussion runs for seven days; you have plenty of time. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:08, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just added sources from Business Week, Mac Week and Wired UK. How notable is notable? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gregoryptm (talk • contribs) 15:13, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

At first glance, those look pretty good; the BusinessWeek article is definitely a keeper. Let me take a closer look later today, and if it is good enough (and I suspect it is), I'll withdraw the deletion nomination. In the meantime, though, you might want to take a look at this; we generally prefer the paragraphs to be directly cited to the source that supports it, rather than just having a bunch of sources glommed on at the end. No worries, though; that's not a big enough concern to warrant deletion or anything, as it's easily fixable. Again, I'll see what I can do with that later today.

A few other tips about Wikipedia: when you make comments to pages that aren't articles themselves (like this page or talk pages), it's best to sign your comment by adding four tildes to the end of your post like this: ~~~~ . The Wikipedia software will turn this into your username and a timestamp, which is pretty helpful for figuring out who said what and when. There's a bot that'll do this for you if you forget, so it's not a huge deal, but it helps. Also, do you know about your talk page? Sometimes people don't. You can get to it through this link, or the "My talk" link at the top-right of each Wikipedia page. That's where people will leave you messages if they're trying to get in touch; when someone else writes to it, you'll get that bright orange "You have a new message" banner at the top of Wikipedia pages. Check it out! Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:23, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, after looking at them, the Bloomberg source and probably the Wired.com source (with a loose enough definition of "significant coverage") look legit enough (the others appear to be opinion pieces, which generally aren't accepted as reliable sources). So, I'll say that Stone is probably notable enough to pass the GNG, though it's a borderline case. I'm going to leave this AfD up for now to get other people's input, as it's a borderline case, but I'm changing my delete !vote to a weak keep. One way or another, the article needs a lot of work. Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 23:41, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 17:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Mark Arsten (talk) 14:37, 1 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - FWIW, I've known Andy Stone since 1991. Andy influenced my NextStep programming and ultimately led to my creation of Mesa (a spreadsheet for NextStep and the worlds first real-time spreadsheet). I'm not sure why there is any quibbling at all about Andy's Bio. It all seems right to me and it seems nasty and petty to try to take it down. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearfeeder (talk • contribs) 01:15, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi mate, you need to understand that an AFD discussion is about whether or not a a subject meets the criteria listed at WP:GNG and is therefore "notable" by Wikipedia standards. A discussion about notability should not be considered a personal attack on the subject or their work. It is not an attempt at being "nasty". Wikipedia has standards about what should be included and what should not - editors enforce standards by encouraging discussion about different articles if they think those articles do not meet those standards. Think of it like qualifying for the Olympics - if they didn't have a qualifying standard, everyone (everyone!) would be allowed to run at the Olympics. That would obviously just be silly. A nomination doesn't mean that someone thinks Andrew C. Stone can't run at all or that he doesn't have a nice running style - just that he might not be fast enough to run at the Olympics. Cheers, Stalwart111 (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi dude... and what you "need to understand" is that without Andy Stone, it's likely that OS X, iOS, the iPhone and the iPad would not exist. He has been quietly influencing the direction of Next, Steve Jobs, NextStep, OS X, iOS and their related developer communities for more than a generation. The simple fact that he doesn't crave the press so there's not much written about him does not diminish the fact that Stone Design products helped close early NextStep customers (I've got old copies of NextWorld magazine that attest to that... sadly they are not online) and without those customers, there would be no Next and there would not have been an Apple purchase of Next nor a return of Steve Jobs. Andy was a constant voice of reason to Steve Jobs. How do I know? I observed the two interacting on numerous occasions including when Andy and Stone Design were early adopters of OS X and helped Steve close Adobe and others to port their software to OS X. Wikipedia allows an entry for Bill Fernandez that only has one cite. Why? Isn't that a violation of sacred policy? How do you know that Forbes got it right? Why not Andy Stone as well? These guys both were incredible, quiet, behind the scenes influences on Apple and Steve Jobs. Deleting Andy's page is simply and clearly petty. Now is it nasty? Yeah... everything I've seen of the issues around Wikipedia and corrections and the editorial standards leads me to believe that the editors are volunteers who wield power and use that power unwisely... that, in my opinion, goes beyond simply being petty to downright nasty. Put another way, you're hassling someone who is a but-for cause of the computer and phone you are using today because over his 20+ year technology career, he hasn't sought a lot of press, so there are fewer cites that you'd like. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bearfeeder (talk • contribs) 14:53, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not really sure where you're going with a lot of this, but I've left some thoughts on User talk:Bearfeeder. I don't know what other experiences you've had on Wikipedia, but I for one can tell you that I have no horse in this race; I don't know the guy, have no reason to hassle him, and indeed don't really know why this would be a hassle to him in the first place. After all, if he avoids press, why does he care if he has a Wikipedia article? (Also, the discussion seems to be leaning towards keep, so I double don't get it...) Writ Keeper ⚇♔ 15:22, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, mate, I tried to be nice about it and explain that WP:ILIKEIT and WP:OTHERSTUFF aren't really good arguments to make when someone has nominated an article for deletion. No-one here has anything against the person in question. It's just that, on balance, the article (as written) does not meet Wikipedia guidelines. But even that isn't enough to see it deleted. There still has to be a community consensus that the article should be deleted. You are welcome to contribute to that consensus (with more civility than you have so far, I would suggest) or you can contribute to the article by adding sources to verify that the subject is notable. Otherwise, Wikipedia would just be about every guy who ever had an idea or every employee of every company. That's just silly. But showing up here, telling "volunteers" that they are "nasty" doesn't help your cause, or the subject's cause. If fact, you do him a great disservice - this conversation (keep, delete or otherwise) gets added to the history of the article in question for everyone to see forever. Getting aggressive on behalf of the subject has the potential to make the subject look bad. For a long time. That's why conflict of interest editing is strongly discouraged. Stalwart111 (talk) 23:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Weak keep - agree with the nominator's altered position that the subject might just meet WP:GNG, based on the sources provided above. Definitely borderline but I'm inclined to keep on the basis that coverage is likely to be ongoing given his product is still being sold. Cheers, Stalwart111 (talk) 02:47, 2 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

Keep - Hey, this is the author of the original article - many citations have been added and the article is no longer an orphan, with an inbound link from Rick Strassman's page and perhaps others. While I do not fully understand the ins and outs of the WP:GNG, I will say that there is a community for whom Andrew C. Stone's contributions to personal computing do warrant inclusion into Wikipedia, but that's just an opinion.

In the past, I have made other Wikipedia contributions that have not generated nearly so much controversy and I'm a little surprised by this level of editorial involvement, though I certainly don't begrudge it. My experience as a wiki-writer has been that when I find out that people who have notability within their fields, however narrow and off beat, (see my article on birch bark biting for example, I create a page. I am not a "pro" wiki editor and don't spend a great deal of time here knowing every bit of minutiae regarding WP rules, but I have created enough pages for others (Mark Pesce, Allan Houser, Peter Sarkisian, and others to feel like this subject, Andrew C. Stone met criteria for notability within his field.

Gregoryptm (talk) 15:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's great, and you should be encouraged to contribute. Those articles are looking good (though the last could do with a few sources). It's a matter of verifying things, as opposed to just "knowing" things. You opinion (above) is entirely valid, and there are plenty of things on Wikipedia which would be considered to have "niche" notability (my words). Unfortunately, though, we do need to apply the same standards across the board to prevent Wikipedia from becoming a horrible mish-mash of everything that ever existed. As I said, I think this subject now probably does (just) meet the criteria at WP:GNG. It's just a matter of being careful to ensure future articles do as well. (I also "voted" for you - assume that is your position. If not, please feel free to amend). Stalwart111 (talk) 23:26, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Andrew Stone was one of the first developers out of the gate for the NeXT operating system. For years, while NeXTs flourished in very niche, vertical, specific enterprise markets, Stone worked to provide applications targeted at not just those users but at all users. I personally made use of his Create! and DigiPhile applications, and was thrilled to discover that he'd made the transition to OS X and iOS. His efforts not only encouraged other developers in the NeXTSTEP arena, but also provided examples to new converts to the platform as OS X reached market and increased in popularity. Furthermore, he's not "just a developer," as a few minutes with google will tell you. He's also known for his gardening hobbies and the adobe tower shaped like a chess piece. He's notable for the breadth and diversity of his interests, as well as his products, and the efforts he's put in to help bring more developers into the OS X world. (see for example this recent article describing "The Cocoa Conspiracy": http://www.santafenewmexican.com/localnews/092212techbytes Thanks! Dschuetz (talk)

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.