Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gervase Markham (programmer)

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. Randykitty (talk) 14:23, 5 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Gervase Markham (programmer)

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Fails WP:BIO and WP:NOTAMEMORIAL. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:18, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. The subject is notable. He contributed to this book: https://books.google.com/books?id=G6ybAgAAQBAJ He is cited in the IEEE Xplore: ISBN 9-780-76952304-0. Actually, almost every other book about Mozilla mentions the subject. Dr.KBAHT (talk) 21:01, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That book mentions him exactly twice in passing, and not even on "real" pages (xv and xvi). Clarityfiend (talk) 07:45, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Being one of 37 people listed as having contributed hacks, writing or inspiration to a book and being cited once are both way short of any notability standard. And why, if he is covered by almost every other book about Mozilla, does Google Books only find that mention and a nine-word long quote from the subject in the apparently self-published "How To Build Massive Subscriber, Membership and Social Media Lists" by Marc Charles, which appears not to even rise to the level of having an ISBN? Phil Bridger (talk) 10:13, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Google books lists many mentions: https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22Gervase+Markham%22+Mozilla There are at least 6 matches on the first page. Anyway, not notable people are not cited by the IEEE. Dr.KBAHT (talk) 15:23, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I make it five mentions, and none goes beyond the simple fact that the subject worked for Mozilla. And if you want to get into citations, for which WP:PROF#C1 is the guideline, typically people who work in computer science need to have thousands of them before they are even considered to be possibly notable, not one. Phil Bridger (talk) 19:02, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You counted 5 mentions because the 6th book doesn't mention the subject and you assumed that the rest of the list doesn't either. If you keep scrolling you'll find more. If you really think that somebody needs thousands of citations in scientific journals, then why everybody knows Nicklaus Wirth, Richad Stallman, Donald Knuth? I know people who published dozens of computer science books and were never cited by the IEEE. Dr.KBAHT (talk) 20:44, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Because those people (if you spell their names correctly) do have thousands of citations to their work. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:11, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 17:51, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 17:52, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 17:52, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. Phil Bridger (talk) 21:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I found this through the academics deletion sorting list, but for this sort of subject, academic notability is not really an option (because scholarly writing is not what he did, so it's unsurprising that he doesn't meet any criterion of a notability guideline based on that). The only reasonable option is WP:GNG. But the only thing we have in the article that looks like a published source about Markham is the Dr. Dobbs interview. There are some editors who think interviews shouldn't count for notability at all — I tend to disagree, but we should only count them when they go into some depth about the subject, rather than focusing on other topics, and this one is the kind of interview that's primarily about some other topic. It's also only one source and we need multiple sources. The passing mentions in books discussed above also don't add anything to the case. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:34, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
~~very weak~~ keep. borderline GNG, the main issue is that the article does not clearly state the subjects claim to notability (instead talks about ancestry and him being the youngest employee at a company which does not qualify for notability). After reading the article, I am still not clear what the author really *did* that was notable, his role at Bugzilla should be more clearly elaborated in the article. On the other hand, Contributing to a book is not enough to pass WP:NAUTHOR or WP:NPROF. There is the German obituary on a probably notable site, there is the Dr Dobbs interview and the O'Reilly Open Source Award award which together make this a rather weak keep. --hroest 18:18, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

comment I also found this mention on LWN one of the leading open source outlets. I think overall there was enough coverage the substantiate the fact that he was an important contributor to Mozilla and Bugzilla and the community in general. --hroest

I'm afraid I don't see how any of those qualifies as significant coverage in an independent reliable source. As regards the first, we seem to have many editors who don't even consider an obituary in The New York Times or The Daily Telegraph to be sufficient for notability, so one at a niche Linux web site would certainly not clear the bar. The Dr Dobbs interview is exactly that, an interview. I can't see any evidence that the award gets anywhere near WP:ANYBIO (once again, we even have people claiming that a knighthood is not enough). The LWN source just seems to consist of forum posts. Are you sure that you are not promoting systemic bias here in favour of people who work in the software industry, specifically those involved in open source projects? Phil Bridger (talk) 19:55, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The sources are not in depth enough to establish notability, and the subject does not appear to meet the criteria as an author, academic, etc. Fails WP:NAUTHOR, WP:NACADEMIC, WP:ANYBIO, and WP:SIGCOV.4meter4 (talk) 19:35, 16 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep. The article has been around since 2006 and isn't really any less notable than most of the other members of Category:Mozilla_people or Category:Mozilla_developers. In fact, Markham's article is linked to by more articles than some of them, so there's certainly an opportunity to add more content. The work he did regarding browser PKI governance alone was fairly notable (even if it isn't well-known). It's possible that notability guidelines might need to be written for programmers and technologists, because most of them can't quite be compared to academics or creative professionals. dma (talk) 21:32, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 19:47, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: This is heading towards a no-consensus close – further comments would be appreciated.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:43, 24 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, per the conversation above, the sources cited are nothing more than passing mentions. Devonian Wombat (talk) 01:57, 2 July 2021 (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.