Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Everson

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was special. I am ending this nonsense and closing the nomination early. There is clearly not going to be a consensus to delete. Isomorphic 06:13, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Michael Everson

Vanity Page nominated by 68.42.0.182

• keep typical bio page —msh210 20:15, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• speedy keep -- I have to laugh at this, I really do. The anonymous nominator had only one edit previous to nominating this page for VfD, and that was to the Time Cube article, so his nomination is doubtless in retaliation for my having put up Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Time_Cube. I am, of course, the Michael Everson in question, and the article has been on the Wikipedia for more than a year now. Irregularities as to its original appearance were discussed at length on its talk page, and everyone was satisfied that it was not a vanity article. Apparently my work for Unicode makes me a minor celebrity, and other Wikipedians of note agreed that the article was noteworthy, neutral, and verifiable -- and it still is, as far as I can see. I am pleased to be one of the Wikipedians with article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedians_with_article), and I do hope the article doesn't get deleted. (See the Dutch version at http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Everson if you are so inclined.) Evertype 21:15, 2005 Apr 26 (UTC)
• Speedy keep; there's already consensus that the article isn't vanity. --Angr/_comhrá 21:34, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep - I was one of the original people who determined that it wasn't a vanity page, and I still maintain that opinion. -- Arwel 23:13, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. Apparent bad-faith nomination. --Carnildo 23:15, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. This shouldn't even be an issue.
• Check the history if you would like to see 209.30.65.63's vandalism to what I wrote above. Who are these people? Evertype 00:38, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)
• Delete. Non-notable. Page smacks of self-advertising. His claim of celebrity status is unfounded and likely the result of some sort of catatonic delusion of grandeur. GNAA Popeye 01:16, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Well, you don't know me, or my work very well, I guess. It was another Wikipedian who called me "a minor celebrity" and I guess having an article about me on the front page of the technology section of The New York Times is some evidence of that. I think it's cool, and fun, and I am neither catatonic nor delusional. Evertype 11:39, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

• So what, Gene Ray talked about Time Cube on national television and yet you don't seem to think his theories are worth having an article. Also, I was mentioned as a firefox contributor in the New York Times; maybe I should get an article too. GNAA Popeye 14:12, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• I think the page expounding his theories is not encyclopaedic. It is patent nonsense, pseudo-scientific babble, and the entire article is so POV I think it irredeemable. I said nothing about Gene Ray's own page. With regard to the difference between having a feature article in the Times and being mentioned in it, well, I guess what you're telling us is that you're a begrudger. I'm sorry that my opinions about Time Cube make you and others angry. The level of invective I have received over it, however, says more about others than it says about me. Evertype 15:05, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

• Delete. This is not encyclopaedic 68.42.0.182 01:28, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. How can this not be pure vanity?

• above comment by User 24.86.165.199 who proceeded to repeat this phrase about a zillion times in a fit of vandalism, which I have now deleted. Soundguy99 01:43, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Speedy Keep. Unicode, whoo-hoo!!! -- 8^D ^gab 01:46, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)
• Comment This Vfd appears to be related to this discussion. Seems to support the Time Cube retaliation theory. 63.201.91.192 03:15, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• How pleasant. Evertype

• Keep and sanction nominator. Josh Cherry 04:05, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Non-notable self-advertising. Come on people, he wrote an encyclopedia article about himself and is the only major contributor. This is the definition of vanity that wikipedia so likes to get rid of. Wikipedia should not be used as a place that you show to your prospective employers how important you are. He already has his bio on his own domain, it doesn't belong here. - 193.77.153.149 05:29, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep -- he's done a lot more of note in the real world than most Wikipedians. Sure, he created the article himself, but readily admits to his lack of good judgement at the time. Since, may others have contributed to bring the article to where it is today. Retalitation as per the Time Cube VfD seems likely. Hell, Evertype and I even had a tingle over the same VfD, but he's fine by me. - Longhair | Talk 08:00, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, and kill the socks. Radiant_* 08:57, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, Agree with GNAA Popeye. How many thousands of people contribute to ISO standards? Does everyone of them have an article here? No. Why not? Because they aren't really anybody that special. Alexs 09:31, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• There are a lot of ISO standards. There are ISO standards for concrete and light bulb filaments. The Universal Character Set, however, is a bit of a different animal, in that by encoding people's alphabets, it allows everyone to be able to use their own languages to create new texts and express themselves. The UCS enables the digital preservation of all of the written knowledge of humankind. What people consider notable is my work to ensure that the UCS supports all of the world's writing systems, not just the ones which make big companies money. Evertype 13:18, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

• Delete. I've contributed patches to X11 for the truetype sbit renderer and cursors that you see in GTK version of mozilla are my code. Do I have a page on wikipedia about this? No. This is totally non-notable junk, especially considering most of it is duplicated on his "personal" website. --Timecop 14:02, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Vanity is a sin. #bible efnet. --Impi.za 14:27, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Complete vanity. Even considering his unicode work is noteable, half, if not three fourths, of the article is garbage that isn't noteable to a single person on earth. Strip out the filler vanity lines, and all that's left is a few sentances about his coding. This is an encylopedia, not a blog. Only NOTEABLE info should be in an article, not every little side factoid someone can possibly dig up to make it appear as if a person actually did something considerable. --vetta2 14:02, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Non-noteable, vanity. Kryptops 14:42, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Michael Everson likes to self-promote, but at least he's done stuff that he can base that self-promotion on. In any case I don't think we should delete something everytime some random slashdotter says "this is gay". -- Talliesin
• Comment [http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Michael_Everson This] is pretty funny.
• Keep. Everson is a very large figure in the Unicode world, and deserves an encyclopaedic entry; that its content may need to be made less self-promotional is a different issue altogether. This page, if deleted, would likely be reinstated later on anyway by a random outsider wondering why there's no page for someone so well-known. --Sbp 15:41, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. The article needs some editing IMHO, it has too many links (maybe Wikipedia needs some kind of "autolink" mechanism to be triggered at the discretion of readers), but this is far from a vanity page. Michael Everson's accomplishments are real, and valuable, and his place in Wikipedia is well-deserved. -- Non-registered user Javier Candeira, http://barrapunto.com/
• Delete. The vanity disgusts me. I thought wikipedia was around not for vanity but for information. The information present in this entry is of negligible value. His aforementioned "accomplishments" are little more than what one might simply call a "job".-- thelark
• Delete. I agree with thelark. It sounds roughly like a job. Nothing outstanding enough for your own page in a respectable encyclopedia. --jobeus
• I don't think that it is a vanity page. I'm not all that vain. I didn't put the link to me in the Wikipedia; another Wikipedian did. Months later I added in text from the short bio I keep on my website. I was unaware of Wikipedia's policy at that time, but invited people to make sure that it was verifiable and neutral. I believe that it is. I provided some text for an article which has since been edited by others and judged by them to be useful and appropriate. The "parody" you mention is base and offensive, and written by someone who has a lot of hate and a lot of problems, it would appear. All I try to do is make sure that Unicode has all the writing systems of the world in it, so people can use their writing systems on computers. This year I had a wonderful experience, meeting gentle and intelligent people in Bali who helped me to encode their script. That was a pleasure, and I am glad that I was able to help the Balinese people. I am proud of my contributions. I don't think that is "vanity". Evertype 16:27, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)
• Vanity pages have no place in Wikipedia. If we allow one to stay on the basis of "it just uses some space", then that same argument will be applied to others. There should be no favouritism. Kryptops 16:17, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• Biography pages of notable people do have a place in Wikipedia however.Talliesin 2005-04-27T17:23Z

• Speedy Keep and ignore trolls, socks, and bitter cultists. Ben-w
• Keep or merge with his user page, since he's a user. I think he's more than notable enough, however, to have this article stick around. --Badlydrawnjeff 17:13, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• I agree. Avoiding vanity pages and personal flame wars on wikipedia is the reason Encyclopedia Dramatica exists. Just take it [http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Michael_Everson there]. --Girlvinyl 18:40, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't believe that I ever did anything to anyone to merit a treatment that hurtful and mean-spirited. Evertype 20:41, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)
    • One could say that having a parody of you indicates that you are indeed a minor celebrity and deserving of such a page as the one we are voting on. Maybe one day you'll make it to the ranks of major celebrity and actually have a parody of you that parodies rather than engages in unfunny schoolyard name-calling. We all need goals after all.
• Speedy Delete --Girlvinyl 18:41, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. silsor 22:54, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. I don't know anything about the field to judge what makes someone notable within it, though a NY Times article lends some weight to that judgment. I do want to echo the concerns voiced above regarding Wikipedians creating or editing pages about them. I would like to see an absolute ban on such a practice, as it not only necessarily constitutes original research (you don't exactly learn about yourself from other sources) but strikes me as heavily contrary to the objective spirit of this project. No responsible Wikipedian should use this as a forum for self-promotion. If at all, a user should attempt to correct article content about themselves only through talk page comments, leaving it to others to verify such self-claims. Postdlf 00:03, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Userfy, which appears to have already been done, so why have duplicate pages? --82.69.188.246 00:07, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Redirect to user page. Read the vanity page article. The Michael Everson article should be redirected to User:Evertype. The votes are keep 15 against delete 13 anyway. That way we avoid having the whole article deleted. Everyone is allowed to edit the user page. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 23:32, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • That's a valid opinion, but don't unilaterally implement that change while the article is being discussed here. I reverted your redirection. Postdlf 23:51, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • The redirect thing also goes for the article in Dutch, nl:Michael Everson, and the ones in Spanish and Galician if they are created. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 23:54, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm unclear on what you mean, but if you are trying to achieve something here that would be binding upon other language versions of Wikipedia, that's not something you can do here. Log into the Dutch, Spanish, etc. versions and make/propose the changes there. This English VfD has no power to decide anything outside of the English Wikipedia. Postdlf 00:03, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • What I mean is if we delete or redirect the page, then the same should apply to all articles in other languages. All this discussion on this page is being made because someone added a "VfD" template, which is still not the case in articles of other languages, so we can redirect the articles on other languages without asking first. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 00:21, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
          • VfD has authority only over articles on en. silsor 13:37, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)
          • Absolutely not - if you want to delete an article on another language Wikipedia, you go through that Wikipedia's deletion procedures and make your case in that language. en:VfD has absolutely no authority over any other language version of Wikipedia. Any en: user attempting to interfere in another version on the authority of en:VfD would quite rightly deserve to be shot! -- Arwel 21:46, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC) (Administrator on cy:Wikipedia).
          • First of all, you're misinterpreting what I said. I didn't say anything about having authority. Secondly, I didn't say that the English VfD should be used to "interfere" in other language versions. What I mean is that it makes perfect sense to redirect the page in other languages if we redirect it in the English version, because the rules of the different language versions have to be consistent with each other. What's the purpose of redirecting the page on the English version if you don't do the same on other languages? The Wikipedia rules should be the same for all languages. Then I didn't say anything about necessarily deleting the page. I voted for redirecting it. And then, why should a Wikipedia user go through the deletion policy if there is no VfD and if you don't want to delete it anyway? If you make a redirect that makes sense, why should anyone put a VfD template on the page? That's ridiculous. I said redirect, not delete. And I said if, and only if. Don't put words in my mouth! And shoot yourself if you want me to get shot, Arwel, you misinterpreter! 2004-12-29T22:45Z 21:57, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep, of course, and discount any sockpuppets. Ridiculous bad faith nomination. - Mustafaa 00:31, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. The existing consensus should not be disturbed without new evidence. --Johnwcowan 18:42, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. AaronSw 00:17, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• speedy deletion absolutely no distance, no criticism, egotistic trip by author. No one should write an article about himself. There are really more important people and concept to document that to debate this. 165.107.37.86
• Keep Everson's vanity is well known, nevertheless he is worthy of an entry --Peterkirk 00:02, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete vanity Who is this Everson? A guy that works on ISO committees? So? How many anonymous contributors to ISO standards are there? How many other people are on his committee? And he believes he is entitled to write his own hagiography? Who says his contributions are so great? I understand he writes a lot but how original is it? So he got his 5 minutes celebrity in a few articles and a prize... Where are the Wikipedia of the other recipients of this award? Remove his vanity page. Leave the many links he has already put on Wikipedia to his own site since there seems to me valuable info there. Wikipedia must be objective and absolutely refrain from being a way to exhibit and advertise one's oversize ego.
• Keep (reluctantly). I find Everson's vanity very unseemly, but his work is borderline notable. The article is too long for his relatively modest achievements, and really should be paired down. Quale 05:38, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I find no evidence that this is vanity, and anyway, Wikipedia isn't paper, after all. It is slightly notable. Unless you provide me more evidence it is vanity, I will vote to keep. -- Natalinasmpf 05:46, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. "I find no evidence that this is vanity repeats Natalinasmpf", let him consider the definition of vanity: " An inflation of mind upon slight grounds; empty pride inspired by an overweening conceit of one's personal attainments or decorations; an excessive desire for notice or approval; pride; ostentation; conceit." Everson entry is clearl vanity, an excessive conceit of one's own importance. Let him have a user page (he of course already has) and links to his site in the appropriate pages, but he clearly does not merit his own entry on its own written by him (whether objective or not, although I don't see anything in his autohagiographic entry that analyzes his successes and foibles).
• I agree with the "How many anonymous contributors to ISO standards are there?" question. Michael Everson is not the only important member of a standardization group out there. There are a lot of members, employees or workers of the Unicode Consortium or International Standardization Organization, "important" or not, who don't have a main-namespace article on Wikipedia. 2004-12-29T22:45Z 17:38, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.