Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Elf Sternberg

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep (No consensus). --Ryan Delaney ^talk 02:17, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Elf Sternberg

Non prolific. Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Precedents#Literature. Author appears to meet none of the criteria, such as having at least one published work. Erwin Walsh

• Delete Erwin Walsh
• Expand Elf Sternberg was one of Usenets most motable people back in the 1990s, probably one of the 20 or so most famous people on the net. He posted extensively to alt-sex. These indiscriminate bulk VfD from Walsh are getting very tiresome.--Gorgonzilla 20:16, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Please desist from wiki-stalking me, Gorgonzilla. You should also remeber to sign all edits; you have been warned repeatedly. Erwin Walsh

You have demonstrated incompetence in this area, your VfD nominations are about 70% accurate which is not much better than one would expect from random chance and the title of the article.--Gorgonzilla 20:16, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

You have no interest in the merits of the article, only in making attacks against credibility or my intetions in improving the encylopedia. Besides, if the author has only ever posted on Usenet he/she will not be well know amongst non-members. Erwin Walsh

What do you mean by non-members? Usenet is not a club. The current host of the FAQ describes it as "the most-often-accessed sex-education document on the net", and I guess she has the statistics to prove it. --Palnatoke 20:49, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I mean that Usenet is an insular community. People who do not post/read it will have no concept of what it is. Unless this person has had publicity outside of Usenet, in the form of press, book/magazine publishings, etc then there is no justification for inclusion. Erwin Walsh

Walsh, do not make silly accusations. You were probably not around when Usenet was the online community. It has not had that position since Canter and Segal destroyed it. Elf is a very significant online pioneer. He was one of the first people to post a regular FAQ to any of the usenet groups. His was certainly the most significant, it transformed the newsgroup. Your criteria for notability are somewhat strange, Paris Hilton is better known than Tim Berners-Lee, which one of the two do you think would be considered more notable by the editors of Britannica? I doubt you have heard of Butler Lampson or Tony Hoare but they are both very significant Turing Award winners. Perhaps if you bothered to explain your VfD nominations on talk pages, took a few seconds to Google the item and stopped deleting criticism of your sloppy actions from your user page you might be more credible.--Gorgonzilla 23:48, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

• Expand - I have now changed the emphasis of the stub from his fiction to his Usenet and sexuality activities. He may not be notable as a writer (although he is good), but he is absolutely notable as a Usenet person, especially in the vicinity of alt.sex. --Palnatoke 20:27, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete unless notability is more clearly established. Being "an usenet personality" or writing many usenet sex stories doesn't qualify, IMHO. Sandstein 20:40, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• I'd vote to Expand it. While fanfic is not normally notable, his best known piece of writing may be an exception. The erotic short short story "The Only Fair Game" is the leading candidate for the single most infamous piece of fanfic in existance. Its speculation about homosexual practices amoung Larry Niven's Kzinti got Elf Sternberg a cease-and-desist letter from Niven's lawyers in an incident that to date remains notorious within the SF fandom community; there's mention of what happened on the fan fiction wikipedia entry, as well as by Niven himself in the introduction to Man-Kzin Wars IV (ISBN 0671720791). Furthermore, Elf was a relatively well known personality on Usenet prior to development of the WWW and the September that never ended, a prominent poster in the alt.sex.* heirarchy and rec.arts.sf.written — some of the most widely read newsgroups of the time. His editorship for a time of the alt.sex FAQ reflected this. At that time, probably only Kibo and Brad Templeton were more well known on Usenet. He's not widely famous, but the controversy of the Kzinti piece alone probably makes him worth a brief article — although one that will probably never grow much beyond the current stub. Abb3w 20:56, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Thank you. I have included the story in the article; still a stub, though. --Palnatoke 21:51, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Hmm. We already have a reasonable precedent for notability of articles on Usenet folks, some of whom are notable otherwise (Gene Spafford, Henry Spencer, Brad Templeton) and some of whom are only notable in the context of Usenet (Robert McElwaine, Kibo, even B1FF). I'd guess worth keeping even in the absence of notability for the writing. This is something slightly more notable than "X is a frequent poster to the forums at Y and is really cool", which we see a lot... Shimgray 21:01, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as per Sandstein, and I say that as a former "usenet personality." And no, I ain't saying who. Nandesuka 21:18, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Usenet nostalgia. / Peter ^Isotalo 21:30, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - I resent the use of Wikipedia VfD for Cleanup. --Celestianpower ^hab 21:35, 14 August 2005 (UTC) OMG!!! Am I really that tired? --Celestianpower ^hab 21:36, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable on several grounds. Niven has commented on the kizinti parody in print (in N-Space IIRC). A regular figure on rec.arts.sf.written, as well as in alt.sex DES ^(talk) 00:00, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, not notable as an author and talking about sex on usenet doesn't meet the biography criteria.--nixie 00:03, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Everybody who has been around the block once or twice knows Elf. His guide to choosing a good vibrator was a must-read in the DIY net sex culture of the 1990s. --Tony Sidaway^Talk 05:47, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep he is well know on Usenet. He gets 6,280 hits on Google and 15,000 on google groups. Vegaswikian 05:51, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep If he is noted in a sub-culture of the size of usenet, he is notable enough. pamri 06:28, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as not notable. There are 6,830 Google hits but examination of these makes it appear that this is a by-product of his productivity, not his notoriety. As to the goups, there do not appear to be any dedicated to him, his activity levels seem to be inflating the numbers. There are 0 results on Google News, and a single major media appearance does not pass the bar for me. - brenneman^(t)(c) 07:07, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, notable Usenet person. Vashti 12:45, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
• I've seen his fiction mentioned in various non-Usenet places. Keep. DS 12:57, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
• Strong delete. Posting on usenet does not imply notability. Martg76 22:30, 15 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. It should be clear he didn't just post on Usenet. --Prosfilaes 03:02, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable. Voyager640 03:45, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• keep. Rich Farmbrough 14:52, 17 August 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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.