Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Recipients of nanosecond

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. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Recipients of nanosecond[edit]

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

This article does not meet the requirements of WP:GNG. Hopper distributed hundreds of these pieces of wire at nearly every appearance. There is no notability associated with being a recipient of one. There is no "Nanosecond Award " as the currently requested move suggests. At most, this is worth a single sentence in Grace Hopper listing a few examples of celebrities who got their bits of wire.

Nominated and seconded for PROD, which was declined. TJRC (talk) 08:47, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Hopper handed these out like candy … totally fails WP:GNG … no need to try to document who received them, even in the main article … things like YouTube videos (the David Letterman link, for example) can hardly be considered WP:RS. Happy Editing! — 71.166.157.40 (talk · contribs) _{11:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)}[reply]
Delete. Anything beyond a brief mention in the main article on Grace Hopper is disproportionate coverage to the importance of this, despite the potential reliability of the sources. This is (fun) trivia, but not encyclopedic biographical detail. Note that I am not suggesting "merge" for two reasons—the level of detail here is too much to include, and there is no reason for a redirect from this implausible search term. ^Bongo_matic 13:38, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete but... the Hopper/Letterman video clip is a marvelous source. Calling it a non-reliable source shows a complete misunderstanding of what WP:RS actually says and means. It's a primary example of Grace giving the full anecdote in her own charismatic style. Sadly, the video is also a copyright violation, and that is the only reason why we cannot link to it.
The other references are all blogs or uninformative (the ganssle.com ref is almost useful, but contain no author-name), and she gave the wires to hundreds of people, and there is already a good full paragraph about the nanoseconds in her article. Hence I'm not suggesting merge at all. -- Quiddity (talk) 16:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I agree with Quiddity on the Letterman clip. A cite to a television show is no more inherently unreliable than a cite to a book or newspaper. The only issue with using youtube is the link to an allegedly infringing page. The same sourcing, without the link, would clearly be acceptable. I should also comment that I did not review the sources for reliability. I have no opinion or concerns about reliability of the sources one way or another; my nomination is based on the notability of the subject matter. In the event the article is kept, it should be limited to reliable sources and notable recipients, of course; and if a trim results is a "list" of one or two individuals, that may be a reason to revisit a Keep disposition. TJRC (talk) 14:33, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or merge. It's not looking good, but can I question most of the logic so far? The reason for the proposal seems to be that each individual "award" wasn't significant, because there were so many of them. But the first question here is: Do we want an article or article section (either by whatever name) on the subject of these bits of wire? (The possibility of a rename or merge is currently under discussion, this AfD and the PROD preempt that discussion. I'd agree that a rename or merge is in order.) The question in deciding whether we want to keep this content is whether these bits of wire in total are encyclopedic, not whether each individual one is significant. So the fact that they were given out like candy isn't important here (but it's very important to the questions of article name and focus, and in that context the point is well made). The second question is whether the article should be merged. I'm inclined to think not, that this all on its own is a significant piece of history. The current Grace Hopper article reads in part Grace Hopper is famous for her nanoseconds visual aid and the most memorable part of these talks was her illustration of a nanosecond. But my vote keep or merge means I want to refer this question back to the talk page. Andrewa (talk) 01:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Erm, did you see the large paragraph under Grace Hopper#Anecdotes? It contains all the information from this stub, and is better written as far as I can tell. As I said, that's why I haven't suggested merging. (I'm a m:mergist, usually I would!). Maybe we just need to add a ===Nanoseconds=== (and ===Debugging===) subheader there? :) -- Quiddity (talk) 02:08, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not that 'each individual "award" wasn't significant'; it's that there was no such award. Hopper gave out lengths of wire as a demonstrative aid to show how far light could travel in a nanosecond. I was in the audience once; I got one. There is no such award. It's a famous prop, but it's just a prop (and already covered as such in Grace Hopper), and being a partial list of the several thousand to get them is not a point of notability.

The PROD and the AFD do not "preempt" the move. The point is the article, under any name, fails WP:GNG. There's no value in having a discussion about where the article should be when it gets deleted. TJRC (talk) 02:13, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 00:34, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Of the five recipients that were listed, only two (Letterman and Booch), appear to be notable. There is no indication that any of the other three are notable, either in the article or the sources. I have removed the three non-notables. I'm making this edit conspicuous since I'm the nom here, and don't want it to appear that I'm stealthily trying to sandbag the article for AfD purposes. TJRC (talk) 15:27, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: notable recipients may be mentioned at Grace Hopper, but there in no reason to keep this as a separate article. No content to merge, unlikely search term. -Atmoz (talk) 07:23, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Author comment. The recipients claim notability in receiving the article remarking on the event decades later. The article was created as an attempt to quantify If the original Grace Hopper article had contained a claim that, for example, 'more than 800' pieces of wire had been distributed it would have, correctly, been rapidly ripped out through lack of verified sources. Creating a new article seemed more appropriate than trying to graft the list into the existing article. Renaming to refer to an award would not be appropriate.

In this discussion page the number of issued pieces of wire varies by four orders of magnitude. How does one credibly establish notability in the face of such uncertainty? The intent of the article was to attempt to establish how many pieces were distributed using public sources (to assure verifiabillity) and then possibly update the original article with this count as a memorable measure of the magniture of the 'prop'.

I see that there has been no comment on the identified similarity to the Erdos number where not only association, but even association by association with a person, is glorified in a similar manner. The article List of people by Erdős number contains a subtantial fraction that do not have articles in Wikipedia (which by definition makes them unnotable) and the list is considered incomplete. The number of easily identified recipients makes the item an interesting piece of folklore. If desired, the actual recipients can be relegated to the Talk page and just the count kept on the (any) article.

The major contention on the article seems to be WP:GNG. Of the items Significant coverage (references by notables), Reliable (easily accessible references by notables), Sources, Independent of the subject (no references by the subject) and Presumed (determined by the administrators), only the last is not met.

Question How would one create an article that attempts to establish an upper bound of a notable activity where the individual items are not memorable but a high level of certainty is required without having to reference one's own primary research? --Pekkapihlajasaari (talk) 15:31, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Writing a mathematical paper in collaboration with Erdös is a significant achievement. Even writing a paper in collaboration with an author a few-degress-removed from Erdös has been considered a worthy anecdote, and a potential indicator of respect-due.

In contast, receiving a visual-aid prop in a lecture hall, where dozens or hundreds of other people also received one, is not worth commenting on (per WP:UNDUE). Even if given personally, it's still just a visual prop. It carries as much significance as receiving a copy of an autographed-photograph. People may legitimately cherish them as keepsakes (I would), but the individual recipients are still not worth listing out, here. We wouldn't make a list of the people she handed pepper-packets to, either. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 16:57, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Helpful, but not completely so. I would agree that the sale of an Erdös number on Ebay is a debasement - however, it has happened. This makes it a prop for some. I neglected to note pepper-packets as these were not mentioned by the (presumed) recipients. The WP:UNDUE qualification suggests that minority views should not receive undue mention. Note the title of the article is Recipients of nanoseconds - The recipients are the central theme. As I asked, and did not receive and answer for, I would still like to know how to record the individual recipients to avoid double counting when establishing an upper bound on recipients for use as a quantum in the main article. --Pekkapihlajasaari (talk) 21:37, 24 September 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.