Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joel Furr (2nd nomination)

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 keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 04:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Joel Furr

Joel Furr (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Non-notable Usenet personality. Epbr123 12:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

• Weak keep I think he's notable enough, although I'm having a devil of a time finding reliable sources: Google News shows a 1994 wire story in which he's quoted, and Books finds a citation that he wrote some sort of article in 1995 called "The Ups and Downs of Usenet" for comething called Internet World. That's about it. Hopefully somebody else can find more. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - Notability isn't lost over time. Not that it matters for much here, but I tussled with Mr. Furr on numerous occasions back in the Usenet days. Tarc 15:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep -- with some reservations. IMHO the article needs to be rewritten to emphasize notability and exclude that which is purely vanity. Furr's claim to notability is really only the undocumented claim to having coined the word "spam" to refer to unsolicited commercial email. If true, that's certainly notable and worthy of inclusion. Most of the rest seems contextless and meaningless. Digitalican 20:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Internet-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 23:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, if only so that the kept Usenet personalities aren't all certified net.kooks. Furr was a bit of a prankster but never really a kook. I still own one of his t-shirts; adding two WIRED references.--Dhartung | Talk 05:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Notable. Well known historically. Georgewilliamherbert 00:27, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
• Historically notable. Keep. DS 14:13, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as per most of above. Jeh 16:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Epbr123's recent AFDs of nine Usenet personalities listed on the Notable Usenet personalities page, and of that page as well, seems to be contrary to the multiple deletion procedure. The purpose of that procedure is to allow reviewers to see and evaluate the collection of AFDs as a whole. That is not possible here because Epbr123 listed all of these AFDs separately. We therefore cannot have proper context for this discussion. Jeh 16:39, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The entries weren't similar enough to be nominated in one AfD. This shows a lack of understanding of the multiple deletion procedure. Epbr123 16:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I think it shows YOUR lack of understanding of the multiple deletion procedure. They are related in that their claim to notability derived at least partly from Usenet, and from the Notable Usenet personalities page... and you seem to have found them all from that page. Shouldn't voters for any of these pages be aware of the fact that you've nominated so many other related (in that way) pages in quick succession? I think they should. Jeh 17:12, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
      • It doesn't matter what their claim to fame is. Each one has to have been covered by reliable soutces; the vast majority haven't been. Epbr123 17:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
        • That's not my point. My point is that the proper context for this discussion must include awareness of the other related articles you AfD'd in the same day. I might also mention another mere "recommendation", the one at the very top of the Articles for Deletion page: "For problems that do not require deletion, including duplicate articles, articles needing improvement, pages needing redirects, or POV problems, be bold and fix the problem or tag the article appropriately." Why not do that? Jeh 17:31, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
          • It's hard to improve an article with no sources. Epbr123 17:36, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
            • "Or tag the article appropriately." Sure, it's hard for YOU to improve an article on a topic with which you are unfamliar (then again one can search on Google, Google Groups, etc.), but isn't that what the cite tag is for? Much less disruptive than a volley of AfDs. Jeh 17:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
            • Apparently you missed this. --Cheeser1 18:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - significant coverage in multiple independent sources, passes notability test. Gandalf61 20:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Gandalf, Jeh, etc. --Cheeser1 03:18, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
• Keep as there are sufficient sources for notability. Each sort of topic has to be judged by the sources which are likely to be applicable. But I think it was totally correct to nominate them individually--some are better than others. A group nomination would quite possibly have led to incorrect decisions in some of the cases, whichever way it went. DGG (talk) 03:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Joel Furr is certainly noticable in the world of Usenet. Wikipedia was meant to cover subjects like this, to document domains not covered by traditional encyclopedias. --Martin Wisse 09:43, 9 September 2007 (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.