Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Glyph Lefkowitz

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 no consensus. The delete side is arguing that he fails WP:NPROF. The keep side says, well, that may be true, but he's not an academic, so it's not what we should be looking at, and he qualifies as a software engineer. Neither side makes any truly persuasive arguments, and I don't think relisting this for another week will change anything. If anybody feels strongly about it, let's say WP:NPASR applies. -- RoySmith (talk) 17:50, 30 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Glyph Lefkowitz

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Doesn't meet WP:NPROF. Fails GNG. Sourcing in article are passing mentions, blogs, and self-authored works. BEFORE doesn't show SIGCOV. Icewhiz (talk) 17:42, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Icewhiz! I understand the concern, I haven't had all that much time lately to add to the article, so it's still quite stubby. My first question would be, is NPROF really the right standard here? I didn't intend the article to suggest he was an academic; he's a software engineer.

Originally, I decided to create this article on the basis that Twisted (software) has a substantial article and is available in 9 languages. That, plus he seemed to match the level of notability established by Category:American computer programmers.

As far as sourcing, I understand if the "blog" aspect of some of the sources detracts from their apparent significance, but these are the official communications of the Python Software Foundation, and they are far from a passing mention.

Self-authored sources are peer-reviewed journal publications or conference proceedings, provided as auxiliary citations of already-cited statements. I can remove them if they're not relevant.

Anyways, to sum up, the article's not perfect, but at the end of the day, I think there's a strong case for Glyph's notability as the creator of Twisted based on Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Creative_professionals. --MahmoudHashemi (talk) 19:28, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Twisted is clearly notable, the question is whether Glyph is independently notable. I brought up PROF as he has published a bit. I am not sure if WP:AUTHOR is the right standard here - but is one notable library grounds for AUTHOR(2)? I would argue not. What I find lacking here is SIGCOV to meet GNG - outside of a possible SNG.Icewhiz (talk) 19:37, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Many if not most non-professorial entries in the Category:American computer programmers are primarily notable for a relatively small number of notable software projects. In addition, GNG/SIGCOV doesn't really say how to incorporate this into the article, but Glyph is a commonly-interviewed expert on aspects of software beyond Twisted. See here, here, and here for just a few examples. --MahmoudHashemi (talk) 19:47, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think 2 podcasts on podcastinit and a blog/podcast on binpress would be WP:RS or establish notable coverage. He is a speaker at Python related conferences / blogs / podcasts - but it doesn't look like it extends much beyond the Python community circle.Icewhiz (talk) 07:42, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Binpress is not a Python podcast, and a quick search will yield several others not specific to Python, including Developer on Fire, The Changelog, and Code Podcast. And again, there are even more out there. "The Python community circle" is as large as they come for programming languages. So large that Glyph's work on Twisted, core Python, and other frameworks is more influential than whole boutique languages like Julia, co-creators of which have Wikipedia articles: Jeff Bezanson and Stefan Karpinski. I'll let you be the judge of those articles' quality and their subjects' notability, but I will point out that both of them qualify more under WP:CREATIVE than WP:NPROF due to their work as open-source programmers and professional consultants. --MahmoudHashemi (talk) 18:04, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Addressing the OSE arguement, if I throw "Jeff Bezanson" julia into gNews, I get quite a few hits, some of which seem to be discussing him (quite a few due to the startup based on the language). This is not the case with Lefkowitz (Glyph or Matthew). Maybe MSM should be devoting more attention to him, but they are not. The question here notability wise (if we go GNG) - is whether these podcasts (non Python as well) are RS.Icewhiz (talk) 19:04, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, that link doesn't work for me (takes me to the Google Homepage, maybe something to do with the tablet?), and when I visit news.google.com, and perform the search you suggested, I get back "Your search - "Jeff Bezanson" - did not match any documents".

Media/"MSM" coverage has definitely shifted over the years as they caught up to the importance of tech, often overstating the importance of a technology before it is realized. It's actually because of the foundational work that Glyph has done that makes him notable. In fact, his work on Twisted's Deferred went on to influence Python's own built-in asynchronous capabilities, as well as JavaScript's Mochikit, then Dojo, and as a result whole family of JS futures programming. --MahmoudHashemi (talk) 23:57, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry about the bad link. The book you cite has him in two lines (+his name appearing in sample code). Addressing the OSE argument - Searching for "Glyph Lefkowitz" in gNews leads to nothing, and "Matthew Lefkowitz" in gNews leads to nothing as well (4 hits - one due to a talkback, 3 others seem related to a different Matthew Lefkowitz in the real-estate business and aren't in depth in any event). In contrast if I search "Jeff Bezanson" julia I get 32 true hits (raw hit count 47) - most of them admittedly passing (name drop) and these two of marginal depth - wired, waterstechnology (not sure of RSness here). Sources in Jeff Bezanson do not add anything more - so yes, this is probably a plausible AfD candidate as well (though it requires a bit more digging to ascertain this - reviewing all the hits in a BEFORE - and he is "closer" ) - and I will nominate there as well. In terms of notability for Lefkowitz the question should be whether developing Twisted is enough for CREATIVE or whether the blog/podcast coverage of him leads to GNG (e.g. if some of these can be considered RS).Icewhiz (talk) 08:07, 16 January 2018 (UTC) Note that in addition Bezanson also has two well cited papers (~300 cites for each).Icewhiz (talk) 08:35, 16 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep When I looked at the sources for this on my initial review, I think I felt like Glyph as on the borderline of qualifying for GNG because there is a reasonable amount of coverage, but as you mention a lot of it is sources like podcasts and blogs - though he is mentioned in a decent number of books and newspaper articles (and, as @MahmoudHashemi: mentions, the PSF award citation). That said, I think that while WP:CREATIVE is generally applied to artists and such, it definitely seems to apply here because of Twisted (software) and his other contributions to the field of programming.

For full disclosure, while I did not write the original page, I did review it and I've been in touch with Mahmoud separately to discuss how he could improve the article and better show that it meets the notability guidelines. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 19:39, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

One other note to add here, I don't mean to invoke a WP:OTHERCONTENT style argument, but in trying to gauge the general level of notability required for other open source programmers and Python programmers, I took a look through Category:Python people. Several of these like Allison Randal, Armin Ronacher and Greg Stein seem to have similar notability and similar quality sources. Of these, as far as I can tell only Greg Stein has been through an AfD, perhaps the discussion in that thread would be useful here (though, admittedly, we're only seeing the ones that actually made it through). 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 19:52, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Stein and Randal are clearly in a different class - heading foundations, involved in a number of projects, including core projects, and both have several gnews hits. Ronacher is closer to Lefkowitz, however he does seem to be quoted in news sources (e.g. financial times), which is lacking for Lefkowitz.Icewhiz (talk) 20:18, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In case you missed it Lefkowitz is quoted extensively in this register article. Regarding the others, I was mainly going by coverage in sources, as that is generally the main reason for the GNG. If people very clearly notable and well known in this field are getting roughly the same coverage as Glyph, that seems to indicate to me that he is in roughly the same notability class as they are (though it's possible that Randal and Stein's articles are just poorly sourced, not that those sources *don't exist*). Glyph is involved fairly widely in the Python community (see the community service award), and AFAICT Twisted is a sort of ecosystem consisting of many projects, not just a single library, so I think the fact that much of what he's done is under the Twisted umbrella may make it seem like he is less involved than he actually is. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 20:39, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 23:31, 14 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Delete nothing even close to meeting our notability guidelines for academics.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:30, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, no one is claiming that he meets the guidelines for academics, not sure how that started - maybe because he's published a few academic articles, but he's not an academic. The main argument for his inclusion is that he would qualify under WP:CREATIVE. 0x0077BE ^{(talk · contrib)} 13:31, 15 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I think. He seems to be in the background, for ages, pushing the event driven async io into the language model, forward. He is a software engineer, not an academic. I think there sufficient coverage and notabily to pass WP:BIO generally. scope_creep (talk) 12:17, 18 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, MBisanz ^talk 02:32, 22 January 2018 (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.