Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chet Ramey

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. -- Cirt (talk) 03:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Chet Ramey[edit]

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WP:A7 Most software products have maintainers and it's not unusual that they have to update the documentation. That's not the same as creating a notable software product or other significant achievement and should not be enough to assert importance. Msnicki (talk) 16:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 20:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bash in 1993 is probably different from bash in 2010. TEDickey (talk) 21:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Sure, probably. But how much of that was Ramey's work versus contributions from the entire open source community? And how much can be documented? Ramey's own email says that pretty nearly all the major features were already there in Fox's first release. It should be more than just bug fixes. Msnicki (talk) 22:07, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - The program size has grown by a factor of 20 (just looked). Your link points to flash content (text would be an improvement). TEDickey (talk) 22:20, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - Sorry, I have no control over Scribd.com. I was referring to the sentence where Ramey says, "The bash that was released for beta testing was already a substantial, sophisticated product,complete with job control and command line editing." (Beta was released in June 1988.) Re: code size (I assume you mean LOC?), that could mean anything until we can document what it means. Bash has been ported everywhere and there have been lots of hands working on it. All software grows under those circumstances. Msnicki (talk) 22:36, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - The bash release history goes back to 1.14.7. Ramey started handling release beginning in 1.12/1.13 timeframe. Okay, maybe I missed something, but to my eyes, it all looks very incremental. I didn't see any new stuff rivaling the significance of, say job control or command line editing. And even if there had been something, I think we'd still need to document that that was Ramey's individual contribution. Otherwise, it'd be setting the bar so low that we'd need a page for nearly every programmer on the planet. Msnicki (talk) 23:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - Your quote from Ramey is not the same as "early all the major features". Release announcements would be the place to look for the highlights, and the change-log for his role. Saying that all of the work done was the "community" without even reading the change-log isn't plausible. TEDickey (talk) 00:10, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - More than 80% of the NEWS file describes features that Brian Fox was uninvolved with, given your assertions above. TEDickey (talk) 00:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Please AGF. I am not trying to trick anyone. Msnicki (talk) 00:27, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Sure - but do some reading. It seems you've got an idea which hasn't been validated. TEDickey (talk) 00:35, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        
        I read through the scribd link; still no agreement, since Ramey's saying that he's been the maintainer since Fox's last release early in 1992, and the interview from 2002 says the same thing ("maintainer" isn't a synonym for "flunkie-of-the-community). For reference, the 1.13 LSM entry here lists Ramey as "author", doesn't mention Fox TEDickey (talk) 00:56, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        
        A copy of 1.13 is here TEDickey (talk) 00:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Okay, well, what do you think of this definition of a maintainer? Except for the (imho) questionable assertion at the end that it's only possible to be knowledgeable about the design and implementation of a program if one is a primary developer, the rest of the page describes a role that sounds more like a program manager. It cites the hacker perspective that "there is no requirement that the maintainer actually be a developer or contributor to the project" and the conventional perspective that "a maintainer is essentially noncreative, someone who collects other's work, makes minor fixes and presents the result to others." All I'm saying is that, absent other information that has not been presented, Ramey's role as maintainer is not enough to establish notability. Msnicki (talk) 01:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Ramey does assert in 2002 that he's been the primary developer and maintainer since Fox left in 1993. So that agrees with the link you just quoted (unless you find some source that points out that his contributions across 20 years are dwarfed by Fox's release of bash 1.12) TEDickey (talk) 01:58, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        
        The existing sources on the page, as well as the sources which appear via the links on this page are adequate for WP:Notability. TEDickey (talk) 21:47, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Can we please get this discussion on track? The relevant issue is whether Ramey has been the subject of significant coverage in independent reliable sources, not whether or not he has been the main maintainer of something that ninety-nine point a few nines per cent of our target readership has never heard of nor cared about. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:57, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Ramey has been the subject of two interviews. But both appear to be publishing just whatever he told them. One was published only to the web and is by a former FSF vice president and is not particularly independent. The other was published in Computerworld but does not appear to have been fact-checked, as evidenced by the uncritical reporting of the dates when bash was released and when Fox relinquished his role as maintainer that are off by 3 years and appear to have been copied from WP (before I corrected them and added citations.) Neither one clearly addresses the additional criteria for creative professionals, especially, criterion 3. Msnicki (talk) 00:03, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - I don't see a reliable source supporting your comment about a 3-year error. By the way, "Pesky Rabbit" seems to lack professional ethics. TEDickey (talk) 00:16, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Bash 4.1, for example, contains an AUTHORS file. It lists Fox 214 times, and Ramey 400 times. It's fairly apparent that Ramey is the principal developer of bash across its entire history. TEDickey (talk) 18:02, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - Addressing the comment about "creative professionals, especially, criterion 3", there's a lot of evidence that Ramey satisfies this part (more than Fox). TEDickey (talk) 18:04, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - There's more to it than simply counting the number of edits and assuming that with that many of them, there must be something in there somewhere that satisfies the criteria. We can't just assume notability; we need verifiable, reliable citations. Fox unquestionably created Bash, starting with a clean sheet of paper and going all the way through to a first release, indisputably satisfying the criteria as a creative profession. We do not have that kind of evidence for Ramey. Maybe you can fix that. What I've asked repeatedly and you've never answered is if there's any documentation to show that Ramey did more than bug fixes and minor enhancements, independent of the number of individual edits. If you can document the achievement, I'd be delighted to retract my nomination for deletion.
    - It's totally possible that Ramey has done more than enough to be notable but there's no way to prove it (or alternately, that it could be done but that you don't want to do the work.) Okay, that could seem unfair. But otoh, there are probably lots of very accomplished people about whom we never have articles for the very same reason. Consider Jimmy Wales's essay or the comments in WP:POSITION. Msnicki (talk) 19:42, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - It sounds as if you're saying that you have no way to determine if Chet Ramey is recording things accurately, and that you're implying he's a liar. Do better than that. TEDickey (talk) 19:51, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        It is certainly not my intention to question anyone's honesty or good faith and I'm hopeful you'll extend the same courtesy to me. On reflection, I think I chose my words poorly in my nomination; it probably does seem like I'm questioning Ramey's accomplishments and I can see how that could get us off on the wrong foot. For that, I apologize. This is the first time I've done one of these. Hopefully, I'll be better next time at stating my reasons more clearly purely in terms of the guidelines here on WP regarding sources and verifiability. Respectfully, Msnicki (talk) 22:49, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Then you should provide (as you have not) an explanation of how it is that he doesn't meet the criterion 3 for creative people, given that he and Brian Fox are noted widely as co-developers. Merely saying that you don't know indicates that you're discounting any of the instances which google is showing us TEDickey (talk) 23:57, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        
        There are 62 hits in "scholar", 71 in "books", and 59,000 in "google". Besides the books by, or acknowledgments in, there are several references to co-developer (which perhaps may mean more to you than "maintainer"). He's also active in standards discussions, e.g., this. By the way, according to your complaints, we should open an AFD for Brian Fox. TEDickey (talk) 00:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Weak delete. Interpreting the elinks as sources (they really should be converted to citations), only one of them contributes to notability, the computerworld.com.au appearance. That's not enough to satisfy WP:GNG or WP:BIO. —chaos5023 (talk) 22:33, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:17, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete (as nominator). (Summarizing from above.) There's only one independent citation and even it is weaker than it should be. It's a verbatim interview of Ramey, not an article about him, the subject is bash, not him, and the reporter seems to have uncritically copied some dates from WP in her intro. (WP:GNG or WP:BIO) Also, the sources offered fail to document for us the additional criteria for creative professionals, which I interpret to mean, for a software professional, a substantial contribution as an original author, at minimum, of an identifiable and notable feature. (WP:AUTH) Msnicki (talk) 00:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, notability established by several books citing Ramey as the bash maintainer, as well as by books written by Ramey. etc. TEDickey (talk) 01:05, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Conspicuous by its absence there is books about Ramey. Which sources are you saying are about this person, upon which an encyclopaedia biography about the person can be verifiably based, again? Uncle G (talk) 23:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - To be fair, they don't have to be devoted to Ramey as a topic to contribute toward notability, but they do have to do more than mention his name in connection with bash. Books by him are primary sources and irrelevant to notability. —chaos5023 (talk) 23:57, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - inadequate secondary sources to establish notability. It is a valid search term, so a redirect should be created to Bash_(Unix_shell)#History. VQuakr (talk) 01:52, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I like this idea. Msnicki (talk) 03:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Notability is not, of course, inherited, and the GNG, of course, requires that any sources intended to bolster notability discuss the subject in "significant detail." Since "being a software maintainer" is nowhere found in policy or guideline as a qualifier for presumptive notability, we can safely ignore the first half of this discussion. The raw number of Google hits with Ramey's name is irrelevant. Do any of them discuss him in significant detail? Ravenswing 18:27, 18 November 2010 (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.