Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Albert Clark

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 DELETE. — JIP | Talk 20:34, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Albert_Clark

Contains unverified claims of previously-unheard-of "Internet Pioneer" being "one of the primary drivers behind the modern computer revolution" and having made a decision that resulted in "makers of IBM clones and Microsoft" becoming "the standard". The talk page includes comments by his "old systems analyst" apparently trying to contact him, but it is unclear whether these are actual attempts at communication or attempts at giving the article credibility, written by the creator of the page himself (check the history of the article and the Talk page and look at the writing style). The article on personal computer contains an entire paragraph on Mr. Clark's alleged achievements, which claims that he had a pivotal role in making Intel processors "the standard". The person may very well be real but the "achievements" listed are completely unsubstantiated, so the article is at best a fraudulent vanity page (which should be removed) and at worst entirely false (in which case the page should also be removed and the personal computer article fixed). Google searches on Mr. Clark only turn up his resumé in the Google cache and a bunch of mirrors of his Wikipedia page. The likelihood that this is just a hoax is extremely high. Alskdj 16:33, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

• Comment - I believe this article may be verifiable, it might just take longer than we're used to here. A Freedom of Information Act request should turn up any records the DoD has on Clark and his computer pioneering activities. As the world's largest source of information, we might even get the fees waived and the process expedited. Gentgeen 17:35, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and list for the appropriate sort of review/rfc/cleanup. AfD is a poor way to get an article verified -- "Verify it or the article dies!" -- and verification will probably take longer than an AfD-period. — mendel ☎ 17:37, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, information is unsubstantiated, unsourced, and not WP:V. If someone wants to get a FoIA request and attempt to verify this, that would be great, but I suspect you would be wasting time and money. If any of this were true, you would think there would be at least one passing mention of Mr. Clark somewhere on the web... but alas, all that exist are wiki mirrors and other Albert Clarks.--Isotope23 18:01, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete we can't take chances on potential hoaxes. It seems to me that a genuine internet pioneer would have a certain, y'know, internet presence as well, even if mostly in history documents and such. With nothing substantial on Google and no other sources to speak of, this has to go. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 20:13, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment substantial claims require a substantial body of evidence. This page should at least have a {{not verified}} template slapped on the top. Thanks. :) — RJH 20:19, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment I would like to emphasize that there are three possibilities. Scenario 1: The information in the article is correct. It is claimed that a heretofore unknown person has had a hand in creating the Arpanet/Internet and played a crucial role in making PCs, Intel processors and Microsoft the industry standard. This is in violation of the "no original research" policy: absolutely no sources have been mentioned, unless the "contact attempts" on the Talk page are considered to be circumstantial evidence in favor of these claims. It appears to be extremely unlikely that the claims could be true. We should assume that this information does not check out, and the burden of proof should rest on those who claim that it does. Scenario 2: The article is correct for the most part but the information on Mr. Clark being an Internet pioneer is incorrect. In this case, the page fulfills the definition of a "WP vanity page" and should be removed. Scenario 3: This article is nonsense and should be removed. — In light of these three possibilities, I fail to see how this article could be retained unless someone steps forward and provides extraordinary evidence for the extraordinary claims made therein. Alskdj 21:55, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment 2 Upon closer examination, it seems that the major contributions to the content of this article have been made by a single person with two different userids plus one anonymous IP address, posing as several persons (see the Talk page history and work backwards from there if you're interested in the details or check out Special:Contributions/Albert.clark, Special:Contributions/Allynnc and the contributions by 209.22.221.73). Several dubious things stand out. To name just one example, a critical comment has been removed from the Talk page entirely and the Talk page has been edited in an incoherent manner, apparently to make the article seem more convincing. Furthermore, the talk pages related to these users and to the article in question are a complete mess and contain numerous claims that are patently bogus. For example, see User_talk:Allynnc where it is claimed that Mosaic (the web browser) existed as early as the late 1980s. Anyone who looks at the history of this article and the histories plus talk pages of the users involved should see that there's something fishy going on here. Alskdj 22:30, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete highly suspicious entry based on above. Dottore So 22:34, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Delete. I worked in this field from 1984-89, in ARPANET/MILNET design, testing, evaluation of equipment, network architecture, etc., on several government contracts including (mostly) the Air Force. I vaguely remember the name, but don't think of him as any sort of major figure in the field. I think the early history regarding network efforts and AUTODIN are probably correct, but to be frank, they do not really represent notable or widely-known developments in the field. I could probably write articles about at least half a dozen people involved in such projects -- myself included -- that were early implementors of network technology in DOD, but I don't believe that they necessarily warrant Wikipedia articles. And some editors appear to have wandered into the weeds of mythology here, too. MCB 22:59, 1 November 2005 (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.