Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matt Cutts

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. Jehochman (^Talk/_Contrib) 12:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Matt Cutts

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Matt Cutts (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Fails WP:BIO. Working for Google is not notable in and of itself. No other notability established. ju66l3r 20:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Cutts is more than just another Google employee (I agree that's not enough on its own). He is one of the highest-profile public faces of the company. He's a regular speaker at industry conferences [1], [2], frequent interviewee [3], [4], [5] and sometime darling of the blogosphere [6]. He's also the maintainer of the official Google blog [7]. Gwernol 21:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Being what is essentially a PR agent at a corporation doesn't qualify one for a biography at Wikipedia. Before choosing to vote "keep", ask yourself if you would still vote keep if this guy worked for any company but Google. -/- Warren 21:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Cutts isn't a PR agent. He's a software engineer who acts as the technical representative of Google for webmasters; that's very different. And yes, I'd absolutely expect to see articles about people in equivalent roles in equivalent companies like Microsoft, Apple, Cisco, Oracle, etc. The reason these people are notable is they get a lot of press coverage and are widely known. Gwernol 21:40, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep He is a very notable person in the tech world and there are a huge amount of pages and posts about him. I have heard of him several times and do not work in the tech world. this is definitely a keep. thank you. Thebt 20:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Cutts is more than just the PR man for Google - he is the public face of Google for everyone in the search industry. As Gwernol stated, his notability is easily verified by any of the links above, as well as via searches in Google News, Yahoo News, and probably any other news outlet you decide to look Caydel 21:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • For example, here he is interviewed by the BBC. Gwernol 21:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
    • If that's the case, then get the information into the article. As it stands, the article cites some blogs as its primary sources of information -- and as we all know, blogs are generally not valid sources of information, unless the blog is written by the subject of the biography. I shouldn't have to read an AfD discussion to get an assertion of his notability from a reliable source. And... ehh, that BBC article doesn't really assert Cutts's notability, anyhow... he's made out to be "one of many" people working in a certain area at a company... not everyone interviewed by BBC automatically qualifies. -/- Warren 22:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I've already added the BBC interview to the article. As for the assertion that an interview with the BBC doesn't establish notability: I'm not sure what to say to that. What do you count as notability then? Its just fine for an AfD discussion to turn up valid new evidence for an article. That's why we don't just delete articles on sight. We're all here to build the best encyclopedia we can: if good information turns up in an AfD and allows us to improve rather than delete an article, then I call that a win. Gwernol 22:20, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Merely being interviewed, especially in the context of being a representative for the company you work for, doesn't make a person notable. Doing something noteworthy does. What has Cutts done that is noteworthy, other than do presentations at advertising industry events (yawn) and speak on behalf of Google on specific subjects? In what ways does he meet our WP:BIO notability criteria? -/- Warren 22:34, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
          • Careful. We do keep Paris Hilton though she has "done" very little in her life. Note that BIO is more about sourcing and "notice" than about judging what people have done (especially as outsiders may not have a really good idea what that is). --Dhartung | Talk 22:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
            • Bad example. Paris Hilton is many times more notable than this guy, according to Wikipedia's notability guidelines -- she's a book author, movie actress, recording artist, and a notable cultural figure in New York City, not to mention that there are successful products named after her. What's Cutts got... a blog? He runs a team of a few people at a company of 10,000? He speaks at conferences? Shit, if that's all it takes, then we've got over a thousand Microsoft employees that need to be added! Like I stated, there is going to be a bias to keep this guy because he works for Google, and so "fans" of the company (who are quite numerous on Wikipedia) will conflate his importance in spite of his failing to pass WP:BIO. -/- Warren 14:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• (deindenting) Apart from speaking at dozens of major advertising industry conferences (and whatever your point of view about the advertising industry, its a major industry and these are notable events) and being interviewed by many independent and notable news sources he's also director of Google's webspam team and wrote Google's family friendly search. Oh and "Matt Cutts" returns over 1 million Google results. For me, that's plenty of notability. Gwernol 23:06, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep C'mon, notable based on common sense. We have better things to do. Tarinth 22:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Come on... This guy is the voice of Google for most webmasters out there --Jdevalk 11:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep -- see BBC interview.[8] If the BBC doesn't meet WP:RS and WP:V, we live in a dark world. --A. B. ^(talk) 13:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep -- Notability:

• ClickZ: Google's Matt Cutts: The Big Interview
• Netscape: Video Interview with Google's Matt Cutts

--Griffin Granberg 16:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep -- Time to discard bogus delete request. Lcnj 15:00, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Assume good faith. Notability was not established prior to nomination and thus the AfD discussion. There was nothing bogus about it. ju66l3r 15:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - He's the official unofficial face to Google. -Philwiki 22:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep This is a joke, right? --Pryzbilla

• Keep -- Notability - He has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his specific field as one of the authors of one of the most widely read and known documents on the subject of web spam, which is acknowledged as the first to use historical data to identify link spam. Information retrieval based on historical data Bill Slawski 23:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep -- I find the fact we're even discussing this incredible. The original instigator of the deletion request should leave Wikipedia for wasting people's time. Ifenn 01:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC) — Ifenn (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

• Please withdraw that allegation. There is no evidence of bad faith on the nominator's part. It is perfectly acceptable to open a discussion on this article since it was not properly sourced at the time of the nomination. Gwernol 01:31, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • There is no allegation to withdraw. The nominator should stick to improving items on subjects they know and understand, rather than post multiple delete requests on items they have poor knowledge of. Note that practically all articles on wikipedia could be improved in terms of sources. However, the original item easily met the average standard. Ifenn 01:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Your assertion that I should "leave Wikipedia for wasting people's time" is not in accordance with WP:CIVIL or WP:AGF. The article at the time of nomination could have possibly been submitted for db-bio simply for lack of assertion of notability (the best it had was "he's well known" and 3 of the 5 sources were self-referential/personal blog with one of these only establishing that he had a PhD in one subject instead of another, i.e., not related to notability). This process allows for a consensus to determine whether notability is established/establishable for the article (which consensus is showing that it is). AfD discussions do not default to deletion. Furthermore, the existence of other poorly sourced articles does not connote this or any other article as untouchable if it does not meet the criteria required (nor does the deletion of an article connote that it can not be reintroduced...potentially as a much better incarnation). ju66l3r 06:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep -- previous discussion about blogs not notable / mainstream media is notable is misplaced. notability should NOT be based on the medium, rather based on readership / circulation figures. there are several notable blogs that have as much or greater readership than top 50-100 mainstream media sources, see Technorati State of the Blogosphere Oct 2006, Blogs vs Mainstream Media. also one person's reference above to 'over a thousand folks here at Microsoft' reeks of bias. while i wouldn't disagree there are lots of potential Microsoft notables, this isn't a race. for anyone who spends any time at all in the search industry, Cutts is a very notable figure (as is Danny Sullivan and several others). the fact that Sullivan weighs in on it and cites multiple references in both blog & mainstream media should end this discussion. and i agree, whomever is wasting our collective time with this question needs a reality check. dave 02:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC) -- The preceding unsigned comment was added by Davemc500hats (talk • contribs) 02:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

• The sources provided by Sullivan in his blog are interesting and some would even make great additions to a number of AfD-submitted articles to help fulfill notability (it's a shame he spent the time to make personal commentary about me on his blog than to improve these poorly drafted articles, but to each his own). For example, if the BMW-Google spat were a part of this article previously, then I never would have had any reason to consider that it might need deletion. ju66l3r 06:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep -- This is the domain expert issue. It's like Wikipedia:Notability (academics) - "The person is regarded as a significant expert in his or her area by independent sources.". He passes this test overwhelmingly. -- Seth Finkelstein 03:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep and I cannot see why this would ever have been nominated. It's not like the organization he represents was an unfamiliar subject to people here. DGG 04:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I don't see why this should NOT be a vote, btw. Matt Cutts is THE guy to read if you are going to read only one blog on search engine optimization. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.59.104.31 (talk) 09:04, 9 January 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.