Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cedric Gore

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 of the debate was no consensus. Given the sterling work done to the article, at first glance a fresh AfD would result in a keep consensus, but I'm concerned by the fact that no articles link to this one, and no articles in Wikipedia currently mention Cedric Gore (so no potential for it). That's very strange for someone who's supposedly notable. Nonetheless, I'm not going to second-guess the discussion here. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 22:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Cedric Gore

After an initial db-bio notice, this article still suspiciously sounds like a promotional press release promoting Cedric Gore's company "Java Kitty" rather than an encyclopedia entry. -- Netsnipe 07:23, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

• Delete, fails WP:BIO, advertising. --Coredesat 09:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

*Delete, as Wikipedia advert articles go, this one ain't even subtle. --Dweller 16:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC) opinion revised... see below

• Hold, Please advise on how "general" it needs to be to remain informative? Should his company names be removed from the entry? There aren't too many African American technologists to report on so I am trying to do my best to submit thoughtful information on the few I know of.--Francespeabody 19:36, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment You would need to demonstrate some notability as reported by verifiable reliable sources. Good luck, because I turned up zip. An example (just to illustrate) on being "general" - Bandlink (like several other DRM systems) seems somewhat unpopular with music fans, as there seem to be people who bought CDs with Bandlink who cannot play them in their machines, and others claim it is in effect spyware (this was the only kind of non-press-release stuff I could find on the technology). If this was to be a balanced article, it might mention the record company stuff and how great Bandlink is (which it does now), and then mention the technical problems and its critical reception. Then it might seem balanced. If the article only mentions the upside with happy quotes, as if the product's a roaring success, then it might look like a puff-piece. --DaveG12345 22:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as non-notable - 50 Ghits for the person, 50 Ghits for the product Bandlink, of which some were irrelevant, and most others were dissing the product. --DaveG12345 22:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC) Neutral - see comment below. --DaveG12345 11:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC) - revised per new version, see below. --DaveG12345 06:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
• 'Delete as above. Nonsuch 23:04, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, I am a student at Morehouse University and saw the guy speak here some time ago. The article is about "The Guy" and what he has done. You guys are talking about a few negative user comments for one of his products though citing nothing specific. Shoddy Google searching if you ask me. Why not do some research before throwing up Delete flags. You don't have to like what the guy does but he has done significant things.
• Strong Keep. Article has been substantially amended. No longer looks like unsubtle advert. Does demonstrate substantial notability for a fantastic invention. --Dweller 09:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

"Shawn Fanning" is listed in Wiki' too and though he has many hackers like yourselves on his jock, he was hated by the record labels.

"Cedric Gore" has done work that has been embraced and widely used by the labels and according to his speech, his work appears on something like over 20 million CDs. So 50 negative comments out of 20MM CDs is freaking amazing. That ratio makes Microsoft products look like Satan's work.

No one here says anything substantively negative about the guy, but if you have something, why not add it as you see fit instead of just "deleting". After all, is that not the point of Wikipedia? I did in fact link to the "Slash Dot" article, which is where I am sure most of the negative issues you list come from anyway.

Further, I have looked at other Wiki articles to gain examples of "good content" and see nothing that much different from what I contributed. Speaking of Shawn Fanning, no negative press is listed in his bio. What about Lars Ulrich's diatribe, and oh, I don't know, the entire music industry contempt for him and his work, yet nada is up there and you guys taint saying anything now. Yet, you want me to post just negative stuff about this guy to show the world just how bad black folks are. Why is that, hmmm?

Why just rush to delete stuff you don't know. I did not know about 99% of the stuff here until I saw it here, but when I try to include something about the black community you all just start slamming it.

DaveG12345, what exactly is the "Ghit" quota for approval?

I guess this is your collective way of "White Washing" the site. If an African American contributes to technology that the music industry embraces, his offering is meaningless because you can find a few fans who miscategorize just "one" of his products. That is just your arbitrary standard. How many musicians lost money, work, and music from Shawn's contributions and slammed him for what he was doing?

Oh... no Ghits to corroborate that? I see, if you got blonde hair and blue eyes but get shut down, you get a free ride on the site and a movie role.

I will withdraw the submission and look for a more fair opportunity elsewhere! --Francespeabody 08:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Ghits is shorthand for "Google hits". When I nominated this article for deletion, I had no racial bias whatsoever or any agenda against Cedric Gore or his company. It was simply my belief that since this article isn't a biography of a noted person, then it doesn't belong on Wikipedia. You have to understand that a lot of people try to take advantage of Wikipedia's ranking on search engines to promote themselves and their own companies/products. At the end of the day this article isn't a biography. If it read like one, then I wouldn't have any objections. Sure not every article out there lives up to that standard, but I only have the time to call them as I see them go past me in the recent edits queue. -- Netsnipe 09:09, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Hey, hey, calm down Frances, I have clearly upset you big-time, and believe me, that wasn't the intention. I certainly hope you won't be going anywhere just yet. I gave my comments above in good faith, as I'm sure everyone on here does. I tried to determine the "notability" of the subject of the article, and I couldn't.

Just to start off with, let me say that nothing that gets written on these Articles-for-Deletion pages is aimed at the people writing the article OR the actual people that the article is about. When we say "delete, not notable", we are not saying "that person is nobody" or "the writer of this article is nobody" - we are saying that, as a Wikipedia article, there is not enough evidence out there to convince us, personally, that this person is "notable" enough to have a WP article. We don't just have a random guess. Honestly we don't. Well - I certainly don't. We are not just looking at the person, for example, and saying "no, they don't belong" without thinking any more about it. Seriously, you must believe me on that. We spend as much time as is reasonable assessing these things before we make a comment.

OK.

The main criteria used for deleting an article about a person is - as you see above - called WP:BIO. If you follow that link it gives guidelines for the type of people that are "notable" enough to have Wikipedia (WP) articles. But there are other guidelines too, and at the end of the day, it is tricky, because we do have to weigh up lots of factors. What many of us do here as part of this process is a WP:GOOG test when we come across a new person article, to see how many Google hits we get (Ghits) for that person. If they don't get very many Ghits, we tend to suspect the person is not very "notable". But we will do other tests too - for example, I looked up the Bandlink product, and did some other tests too, that I can't exactly remember right now. But I did whatever I could.

OK, that's how I came up with my deletion part above. I could hardly find any Ghits about the person (50 is considered very low), or the product, and (as I said above), some of the comments were not positive.

Just a thing I want to point out before I carry on. The reason we have to do these tests and so on, is usually because the article doesn't already say why the person is notable. It often just says "this guy did x and y". There's often no evidence in the article. If we're not experts on the subject, we often have very little information to go on. That's why we do these Ghit tests and so on.

OK.

I think what has happened with my "Comment" to you above, is I was writing very quickly and shorthandedly, when I probably should have slowed down and thought for a minute, and explained myself better. So, sincere apologies for that.

I think the "only guy throwing up negative comments" about any products round here was me, by the way. I hope you can now appreciate that this wasn't meant to criticise the person researching the article in any way, nor the person this article is about.

I was just trying to say, that it's very common to see articles that describe a person in really positive terms, that make it sound like everything is great. You can always tell they are written by someone very enthusiastic about the subject of the article. Sometimes, it seems to be so great, that people suspect someone from the company, or related to that person, or even the person themselves, wrote the article. Now, let me point out, that wasn't what I thought about this article, but the people above who wrote "advertising" in their comments probably did. Don't take it as a criticism, it is just what people, reading the article for the first time in their lives, thought.

I just wanna say, there's nothing wrong with being enthusiastic about the subject of the article. But the problem is, it has to be "toned down" for Wikipedia. It isn't like a forum or blog. And that was what I was trying to point out with my "Comment" above.

So, to illustrate what a "toned-down" article might look like, I gave an example (looking back, probably a bad example!) of the Bandlink DRM technology, and how an "enthusiastic" tone might say "the technology is great", whilst a negative tone would say "the technology is terrible", but the neutral tone (the Wikipedia tone) might say "the technology is very successful, lots of record labels are using it, they are all very happy about it, ALTHOUGH! some users have complained that the technology made their CDs unusable, or whatever".

I hope you see what I was trying to do. It was just meant as an example of "tone" that doesn't look like advertising, because no one would ever put that in their advert, right? That it sometimes didn't work...

And I was writing it quickly, and probably not giving it enough thought. But I wasn't dissing the product or the guy that invented it - I only found out about them both today, so what do I know about them? - I was just saying, it helps to CONVINCE people a lot more that an article isn't an advert, if it says the positive things and the negative things.

Anyway, I hope you see how an article that presents both viewpoints comes across as a bit more "balanced" than the other two options. Obviously, to include any of that in YOUR article, you would need some sources to back it up in the first place, and like I said originally, I could hardly find any information on the internet, so I wished you good luck in searching (the internet is not the only place to get sources, of course, but it's all I have with me right now).

Finally, I am amazed you thought there was any racial motive behind what I wrote, and I hope you don't feel that way any longer. My user page is at the end of this post, and if you wanna talk to me about editing this article to maybe help it survive this AfD process, or about anything else to do with writing this article, just leave a message on my Talk page or the Talk page of the article itself (it is on my Watchlist).

And what I am going to do now, as a mark of good faith to you, for obviously upsetting you, is remove my "vote" from this discussion. --DaveG12345 11:01, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Look guys, do what you feel you must. I see this tendency time and again in American society. For instance no Black Senator or government official has ever even made his way on to a beloved postal stamp. Unless something of note has a white face or gains the blessings of the White propagation machine, it gets ignored.

What you folks fail to realize is that we are a Minority in this Country so if 100% of us were online and using Google, we would still represent 13% of the total traffic. That suggest that there would always be far less "Hit Based" traffic than any white counterpart. Now consider that by 1998 only 48% of blacks over 18 were online and though we are finally up to 60% that is only 8% of the total number of "Ghits". Do you routinely purchase African American themed publications? I doubt it, which is why the more obscure but noteworthy citizens of African descent, go largely unnoticed by anyone outside of the race. (Unless you can shake your ass, play sports, or sing, you don't stand a chance, but definitely not "thinkers".)

I don't say you are actively using race as a way to disqualify the article, but you are subjecting it to standards like a Google search. That is fine for Historical African American figures and references which have had some time to mature in discussion by African American contributors, but what of contemporary individuals. Guys who are doing things now? Who is the Black "Shawn Fanning"? (No one commented on his inclusion from my previous comment) Prominent Blacks do exist whether you know of them or not and that is my point for including this guy. How else are you going to find out?

Quick Story:

I went to Disney Studios some years ago and shook the hand of the guy who was Lead-artist in drawing "Mickey Mouse" for modern use in film productions. He showed me 80 years of design iterations and what he was working on for modern interpretations, took his time to patiently pull out all manner of his work and design contributions, he was also African American. I had no idea of the guy, what he was doing, the significance of his work or anything. I sure as hell know of John Lasseter, and I feel better for knowing of him, but that guy, who's hand I shook, nobody knows! I have a million folks I would love to inform about him but no outlet. Oh, but wait what about Wikipedia? Well I tried that but if the admins don't know the guy personally forget about it.

I honestly don't personally even know of any African American's who know of what Wikipedia is, let alone having contributed to it. I am sure many of us use it but I don't know of any personally contributing to it. Not when the fight for daily recognition is paramount. I don't think you guys are able to see things from this perspective but, the people of "note" in our community might not ever pop up on the radar in yours. Cedric Gore was featured in Black Enterprise magazine, which is like the "Black Forbes" to us, but I guarantee not one of you ever picked up a Black Enterprise magazine in your life.

I am not suggesting applying different or "Less" of a standard for African American contribution but at least try to investigate beyond traditional media or just "White" publications. I am not at odds with any of you for your opinions, I am asking you to expand your field of research. --Francespeabody 22:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Comment on the above. I've changed my mind and gone for "keep" on this, but Francespeabody you miss the point... when you refer to "this country" I assume you mean USA. This is not an American project. There are many millions of web users outside of your country and hey, guess what? Some of them are black and some of them are white. --Dweller 13:52, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

• Keep I have done some research and contributed to this article, and I believe that the subject is suitably notable for WP inclusion. Please check out the article and comment here with any thoughts. I've also responded to the author Francespeabody at their user page re the above comments, and given a few pointers on WP basics. This was a newbie's first article, probably created without much support, and to see it up for deletion I think was upsetting for them, hence some of the previous comments. But I hold nothing against them for that, it's hard work and bewildering starting out on here. I hope they choose to stay. --DaveG12345 06:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
• Move to either Javakitty Media or Bandlink. As it stands, the article is entirely about the software, rather than the person. Notability of Bandlink seems to be well-established by the references in the article, notability of Mr Gore as an individual, no. Tevildo 12:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Time would be better spent fixing the entry, and less on screaming "racism". --DarkAudit 00:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

• Comment First, thanks to those of you who have helped with the article and for offering feedback on how to improve the article. I do appreciate your support and hope it is enough to keep this alive. Ultimately, I will have to let the article run its course so it will either be given a chance or not.

In either case, I thought the contribution was being rather impetuously marked for deletion so I responded to the best of my ability. Sorry if it seemed overly defensive but no one seemed to want to do anything beyond Google in terms of research to validate the work but instantly everyone started putting the guy down. I actually believe that the remark of my having "Screamed Racism" implied recently by "darkaudit" is counter-balanced by the general "Soft Bigotry" implicit in his and others attitude to rush to remove a contribution based on the rather limited premise of "if I don't know the guy, he can't be worth knowing". But to not ask the question "why haven't I heard of the guy? and then do something to uncover the answer seems anathema to the spirit of the website."

DarkAudit directed his rather poignant remark toward me, "Time would be better spent fixing the entry, and less on screaming racism". This was a point I thought I exactly made earlier when I said; "No one here says anything substantively negative about the guy, but if you have something, why not add it as you see fit instead of just "deleting". After all, is that not the point of Wikipedia? 08:14, 27 June 2006".

Wow, if my remarks are going to be ignored in this conversation, why should I expect my thoughts from the primary article to inform opinion. Time spent criticizing is definitely speedier than having to "read everything" but hey, I can forgive your transgression if you can forgive my early ineptitude with the "Wiki-System".

I still hope to be given a chance here, as well I hope to contribute future articles which may or may not be deemed relevant to all admins/editors, but as a contributor I should at least be given a chance to defend my position or to minimally, have my remarks "read" by those who would put me on the defense for my contributions in the first place.--Francespeabody 06:03, 29 June 2006 (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.