Talk:Audrey Tang

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
Wikipedian An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Audrey Tang, has edited Wikipedia as
Audreyt (talk · contribs)
Wikipedian An individual covered by or significantly related to this article, Audrey Tang, has edited Wikipedia as
Autrijus (talk · contribs)
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on April 11, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on March 20, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents

[edit] Significance

Autrijus's Pugs project is currently expected to bootstrap Perl 6; as such, she's likely to remain a footnote to that language's history. I don't know if that's Wikipedia-worthy, but it's something. —Brent Dax 07:41, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • I do not see the merit of this article - it seems like a promo page complete with a photo that reflects the lack of merit of the article. I will propose deletion. Thanks, Hu Gadarn 20:55, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
First off, there was already a debate about the deletion of this article, and the consensus was that it should be kept. If you wish to suggest deletion again, you should at least have a rationale as to how and why the previous discussion has been obsoleted. Second, the quality of the picture (which I think is actually so inappropriate as to merit having no picture on this article at all) has nothing to do with the relevance of the article, or its value to an encyclopedia. Third, Audrey Tang is one of the 3-4 most notable people in the Perl community today - a community which is global; has a direct impact on thousands of programmers; and will likely continue to have an influence on programming for years to come. Fourth, Audrey Tang has been one of the primary motivators for the broad interest in the Haskell language by previously procedural programmers in the last few years. Five... and I mean no disrespect at all here, Audrey tends to draw some ... detractors. In order to help us all assume good faith, it would help if you could bring such topics up for discussion before invoking Wikipedia-wide procedures. I'm all for deleting any article that a reasonable non-notability case can be made for, and would be happy to discuss the notability of any article. I'm also all for improving this article, so please feel free to be bold and improve it, or suggest ways to do so. -Harmil 18:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I wholeheartedly agree with the comment above. I am a Perl programmer and Audrey's contributions cannot be underestimated in that and in other areas, also described in the article itself. Actually, I stumbled upon this Wikipedia entry because I was looking for it, since wp is a common starting point of mine for anything I'm interested in - and the person in question is notable enough to deserve being in an encyclopedia. Indeed, I am about to translate it in Italian. As far as the picture goes, AFAICT it's the kind of picture she likes to show of herself, so in this sense it is appropriate. Blazar 15:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Hu Gadarn in that this article looks like self-promotion. I think rather than listing Audrey's accomplishments, we should ask ourselves what is the difference between a Wikipedia article and a private homepage. And articles like these seem to blur the distinction (or should there be a distinction?). As for looking for it, I think if this article was removed and replaced with a private homepage, that homepage would be highly ranked by search engines and would be just as easy to find. That said, I actually do not think it should be deleted. In this case, I would like to see an article listing notable contributors to Perl, having people like Audrey listed, and at the bottom, a link to Audrey's homepage that is outside Wikipedia. But this doesn't seem like it will happen and there does not seem to be rules within Wikipedia (yet) that separate (say) what should or should not be a private homepage instead. It seems unfair to pick this article for deletion when the "flood gates" have already opened and it is one out of many articles that reads more like a private homepage. And for what it's worth, I think just because this was discussed previously doesn't mean it can be discussed now and again with different people; I think Wikipedia's policies evolve as well as people's view of Wikipedia so this topic may come back again and again.--Rayjapan (talk) 04:15, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
If you think the article looks like a personal home page, the right thing to do is to edit it to bring it in line with Wikipedia style. If you think that Audrey Tang is not notable according to our definitions of notability, the right thing to do is to nominate the article for deletion. These two issues are orthogonal to each other. Moreover, we've had two deletion discussions already, so I think that it would be a better use of our collective time and energy to improve the article rather than arguing the point further. SparsityProblem (talk) 06:02, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
I totally support Harmil's comment from a year ago - Audrey is one of the most notable persons in the very big community of Perl programmers. She is prominent on many Perl and Haskell websites and mailing lists. She speaks in conferences all over the world. She participated in the writing of several printed books, and has been covered non-trivially in at least one book - Perl Hacks (O'Reilly 2006), and there are probably more. Even though she has been quiet in the recent months, notability is not temporary.
Sources and wording of this and every other article can always be improved, but there's no doubt about her notability. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 09:20, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alternate profile

According to a profile on Amazon.com, Audrey Tang "Work at Microsoft. Spent 6 years at Amazon.com. Originally from Kansas." http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A2HONNCE6M02GC. Or is this another Audrey Tang? I found it when I was asked to review or provide customer images for a book on Haskell, so it seemed to be on-topic. But perhaps it was just a coincidence. --HelgeStenstrom 07:32, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably someone else with the same name. SparsityProblem 07:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Right, that would be this Audrey Tang —Piet Delport 03:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sex change, etc

Most people who follow Pugs and Perl 6 know that Audrey was born male, her self-identified gender notwithstanding. She has said as much on her blog, and Wikipedia has her in the "Transgender and transsexual people" category; several of the references currently on the page are explicit in this (別叫我「先生」！電腦怪傑唐宗漢變性改名唐鳳, for example). However, the actual article doesn't mention her decision to bring her sex and gender into line and live her life as a woman -- which, frankly, is surprising! A quick glance at the history of this article shows that Audreyt seems to remove any references to her sexual reassignment. Based on her profile, Audreyt appears to be Audrey Tang, so perhaps there is some sensitivity there. However, this is not Audrey's personal home page, this is an encyclopedia article, and I am left wondering why we categorize her as a transgender or transsexual person, link to references that make her sex change explicit, and yet don't mention that she no longer lives her life as a man?

Because she was formally referred to as Autrijus or 唐宗漢, depending on the context, lots of people were and perhaps are confused about this. We don't need to get all bagua about it, but something in the article noting that she was born male and roughly when she decided to live her life as a woman would be appreciated. Audrey, I understand that it's your private life, but since you've publicly addressed this issue on your blog, and that it's already obvious from the article if you read between the lines, why not make it explicit? It would help clear up confusion. I know I was confused when your name changed suddenly. 70.132.14.22 07:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you are mistaking Audreyt's action and intent: i see only one removal (diff), correcting the claim of having underwent reassignment surgery.
There should be no problem with a more substantial mention of her gender change, as long as it is sourced (unsourced statements may always be removed without comment) and brief (Tang's encyclopedic relevance is as a programmer, not a transwoman). —Piet Delport 03:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Important information

I was also confused when reading it. It discusses, "decided to live as a woman" but it could mean as compared to a child prodigy. The wording needs to be more explicit. Długosz (talk) 11:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If you can think of a clearer way to say it, then feel free. But you must provide citations for whatever wording you choose. SparsityProblem (talk) 07:15, 3 April 2008 (UTC)