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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 23:13, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Leonard H. Tower Jr.

A DRV consensus overturned the previous deletion of this article at AfD as improper. This matter is resubmitted to AfD for new consideration. Per DRV, the AfD page will be semi-protected to prevent spamming. This is a procedural nomination, so I abstain. Xoloz 15:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep as a worthwhile stub. IMO, hits that "just because someone doesn't fall into one of these categories doesn't mean an article on the person should automatically be deleted" clause at WP:BIO. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:17, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • An argument that WP:BIO shouldn't apply is always a weak argument, and indicates that the person probably does not warrant an encyclopaedia article. Any person who warrants a biographical article should easily be able to satisfy WP:BIO. Uncle G 08:41, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I believe there's a reason that clause is there, and this is a good example of it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:51, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Can you tell us what you mean by that Jeff? I'm not seeing you demostrate any actual notability here so the argument you make reads to me like ruleslawyering. Surely that's not what you intended, is it? ++Lar: t/c 14:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • I mean that WP:BIO is designed to set up a framework for notability, but even it realizes that not everyone who's "notable" is going to meet the standard. If you need to dismiss it as ruleslawyering, you'd be wrong and so be it, but I think his position in the FSF confers notability, and it should stay based on that. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:55, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • OK, Jeff.... Go ahead. You have my blessing! Demonstrate that. Provide a cite that he has the position, and that it is notable enough in the history of the open software movement, or whatever else might help establish notabiilty. The keeps have been asked for this for some time, and I'm not seeing it. Hypothetical, or unsupported, assertions don't cut it for me. Until something changes in the article this is such an obvious delete that your claiming differently causes me to question your judgement about what's deletable. Providing a cite would be much more useful than the wikiwlawyering you seem to be engaged in. ++Lar: t/c 16:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Perhaps you might want to lay off the accusations of wikilawyering. It's entirely unnecessary. If I find a cite between now and the end of this, I'll gladly add it - you can do so, too! But the accusations are tired and uncalled for. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • You might be tired of them, yes, but they're not uncalled for in my view. Call a spade a spade and all that, your comments often look like that is what you are trying to do... If you have the cites needed to satisfy my standards here (which I think are more in tune with accepted practice than yours) I'll be falling over myself to change from delete to keep. As for adding cites, I looked. Didn't find any. Not sure I am convinced that adminning a mailing list, even for 10 years, quite counts. As I said, I have 2.5x ghits he does and I'm not notable. ++Lar: t/c 16:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as a worthwhile stub to expand on. Subject is notable and has made important contributions which are indeed "part of the enduring historical record in their specific field" (active part in designing GCC, active figure in FSF and pre-FSF history, etc). Capi 15:43, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are arguing that someone forms part of the historical record, and not supported it by pointing to any such records. Instead, your supporting data are unsourced statements about what this person has purportedly done, rather than pointers to where what this person has done has been recorded in the historical record that you claim that this person is already a part of. The Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies as they apply to living people employ the primary notability criterion in part to filter out people who are not being recorded. If you wish to make an argument to keep that holds water, please cite sources. Show that this person has formed part of the historical record by pointing to the historical record. Uncle G 08:41, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Unfortunately I know this from primary sources (I am not, however, in any way linked to the subject of the bio, have never met him, etc). Capi 12:48, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Aha. Do you not have permission to disclose these primary sources to us? Because I suspect a lot of people around here know what primary sources are and how to get hold of them. I'm on the fringe of extreme sarcasm here, throw us a bone, will you? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:53, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • It is not a matter of permission, or me trying to hide anything... If I seemed to be doing so, it was simply because primary sources are not normally considered adequate verifiable material for encyclopedic content. I know of (some) early free software history (including GNU and FSF) mostly due to following the free software community and conversing with some of the people who have been actively involved in it from the start. I can't really tell you "go to this URL or read that book where a secondary source said this and that". Not that there necessarily isn't one; I just never really researched into it, as I didn't have to. If you look at RMS for example, there aren't that many sources either, outside of himself or the FSF, regarding many of the things we take as common knowledge, and mention in his article. (added a posteriori: GRBerry makes some interesting comments below, which I think fall well into what I said here) Capi 16:39, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep; notable figure in the open source software movement; good encyclopedic potential. --MCB 22:48, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment After all this, has a single reliable source been found on this person? If not, article doesn't meet Wikipedia:Verifiability, regardless of whether some editors feel this person is notable. --Xyzzyplugh 11:17, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete. I searched for sources on Leonard Tower, and couldn't find any reliable ones. I think we can source that he was a director of the FSF, but as it stands, that isn't enough of a reason to have an article. He has done so well at not promoting himself, I can't find any good sources about him. However, if anyone can produce a source that says anything beyond the basics about him, I would support keeping. I don't mind having a stub if it can grow, and I think he's notable, if sources can be found. Mangojuicetalk 11:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete. - I can find no decent sources about this author but will be willing to reconsider my comments if someone can provide some solid sources. -- --Charlesknight 12:12, 24 September 2006 (UTC) --Charlesknight 21:12, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This is simple. It fails WP:BIO, and no reliable sources exist. Arguing to keep in the face of these facts is makes no sense. Sure the stub could be expanded. A stub about me could be expanded, but that wouldn't make me notable or magically produce reliable sources. pschemp | talk 13:56, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article does not verifiably demonstrate notability. There is no useful content in it that I can see. I ran a scan on Google for the name and I get 9900 ghits. None in the first few pages demonstrate anything other than that he posts to lists a lot. CERTAINLY no evidence of historical record or significance there. I personally got 26000 ghits last time I checked, and I know I am not notable. This person is not notable as far as I can see and the article is a non useful substub, and a violation of our vanity policy to boot. The arguments of the keep crowd are totally unconvincing (and those brought in to argue for keep from outside, especially so). Delete... there is nothing really to userify either. ++Lar: t/c 14:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Change to Weak Keep based on additional information, specifically evidence of being a major contributor to gcc. More solid sourcing for that would be better though. ++Lar: t/c 12:11, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Those postings to lists are primary sources for his contribution. His role for more than 10 years at the FSF was to do electronic administration for them, including handling mailing lists and usenet groups. See the citations recently introduced to the stub. As primary sources, we as Wikipedians should refrain from using them to evaluate just what his contribution was, but they are evidence of his contribution. (Also, he usually doesn't use his full name, and references to him usually don't use his full name, so that search underselects the available data. I know Len personally, but only learned his full name from Wikipedia.) Try searching for "Len Tower" plus "GNU" or "GCC" or "FSF" or "Free Software Foundation" or ...
      Also, this discussion (as opposed to the last) was semi-protected so that opinions here are only from established Wikipedians, not from anyone brought in from outside. GRBerry 16:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Less articleworthy than the MediaWiki developers. [ælfəks] 14:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Note to closing admin: The article had no references at all at the time all of the above top-thread-level comments were posted. LossIsNotMore 09:04, 27 September 2006

  • Keep Expanded and cited, but still a stub, at this point in the discussion. (Bias disclosuer: I know Len personally, but have had no involvement in the FSF or LPF. The organization to which we both belong is not listed in Len's biography, either here or on the linked to site.) I beleive that he meets the "widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field" criteria of WP:BIO, with the specific field being the free software movement/industry. Len's long and significant involvement in the FSF is the widely recognized contribution. Speaking on behalf of the LPF is a minor additional noteworthy activity. GRBerry 16:34, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Citing you from further up in this discussion, His role for more than 10 years at the FSF was to do electronic administration for them, including handling mailing lists and usenet groups. I wouldn't say that maintaining mailing lists is significant to the historical record. I'm pretty sure the passage from WP:BIO you cite above was not intended to mean that if you make a small contribution to chronicling, you are notable. The passage may need to be further disambiguated on that point. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 19:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The same source that gives this description describes Stallman's role as "Richard Stallman continues as a volunteer who does countless tasks, such as Emacs maintenance." (volume 1, #22). This is a transparently obvious understatement of the roles of the various individuals. It is, however, the only source we have found so far to use until someone competent (which isn't me), evaluates all the primary sources I was referring to above and publishes a secondary source that more accurately describes the roles of all the key players. GRBerry 12:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • The fact that the cited volume only refers to Stallman's contribution to Emacs does not necessarily imply that there are contributions of LT's that are notable and omitted. Reasoning thus is original research at best. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 00:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete this vanity b.s. once again for the same reason given in the previous discussion. —ExplorerCDT 17:27, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Verifiable. --Ryan Delaney talk 01:10, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep There needs to be an article on Len Tower as he played a major role in the beginnings and current success of the FSF and the GNU Project. I just did a google search for "Len Tower" and there are over 9000 web pages mentioning him. The beginnings of the Free software movement are important and should be documented. And part of that documentation includes the efforts and assistance offered by Len Tower in helping the FSF and Gnu Project to form and prosper. I recall first meeting Len at a USENIX conference in 1990 and he was very active in promoting free software. Richard Stallman (rms) wrote the code and Len helped get the word out. Richard was not that great with human interactions at that time (he is much better now!) and there really needed to be someone who believed in the cause and could communicate well with others. Len Tower was this person. There is no vanity in Len Tower. He is who he is and thank goodness there are people like him in this world. -lile 01:29, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strongest Possible Keep This debate is completely nuts. Len has been the behind-the-scenes organizer, fund-raiser, administrator, and sanity checker for the very organization that laid the groundwork to make projects like Wikipedia possible. Without Len, RMS would still be poor and homeless, and you would all be paying to browse Encarta or Britannica read-only. He easily passes multiple WP:BIO notability criteria per above. It is only his modesty through the years that keeps all the nay-sayers here from knowing just how notable he really is. Shame! The only mistakes he made were starting his own article after being asked to, and knowing someone who mentioned the first AFD on a mailing list of hundreds of people who have known him all these years. Close it kept now; this debate it absurd. LossIsNotMore 07:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per WP:BIO, WP:VAIN. Eusebeus 16:36, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete unless there's enough verifiable information about him to write more than a stub. If his only notability is for being a director of the FSF, he can get a couple sentences in the history of that organization. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 19:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Just a few notability references I came up with, concerning Tower's role as a speaker for the FSF and general involvement in the FOSS community:
    • GNU Bulletin Vol 1, no 1 - Introduces Tower as GNU's #2 man, after Stallman. Mentions Tower (in section "4. C Compiler") as being responsable for the task of redesigning and fully rewriting GCC (one of (if not the) most notable and widely recognized compilers worldwide), which was in its infancy at the time.
    • Usenet hits for Tower speaking on GNU and FSF-related BOFs (Birds of a Feather, discussion groups) - Tower was often the spokes-person for GNU and/or FSF (e.g. USENIX, Sun User Group Conference, etc)
    • GNU Bulletin Vol 1, no 7 - Tower part of FSF board of directors
    • Official AUTHORS file for GNU diff - Tower and 4 others created GNU diff
    • GCC docs, Contributors section - Leonard Tower wrote parts of the parser, RTL generator, and RTL definitions, and of the Vax machine description.
    • Ghits for Tower and FSF or GNU, excluding most of the bulletins
      There are many more mentions of Tower in old newsgroups and mailing lists. What you have to note here is that several of the most notable events range back 20 years ago, in a time when things were much more informal. The WWW wasn't what it is today (in fact it began on 1990), and much was communicated through BBSes, Usenet and simply through personal contact at universities and user groups. Many informal references exist, some of them primary sources, some of them not. This isn't just true for Tower, it's true for most of the early hackers, including of course Stallman and others on whom we (rightfully) already have large articles (hacker here being used in the sense of computer wizard, those who advanced much of what we now take for granted). badlydrawnjeff above is right; this clearly falls under WP:BIO's "this is not an exclusionary list" explanation. Capi 23:18, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • WP:V, WP:RS and WP:NOR exist for a reason. A lot of things in the world happen through personal contact, but data that has effervesced or is stuck in a BBS box in someone's attic is not fit for an encyclopaedia. Please familiarise yourself with Wikipedia's policies. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I am quite familiar with Wikipedia's policies, but thank you nonetheless. Linking me to WP:V and WP:NOR seems to indicate that you chose to ignore the existance of references which I pointed out above as examples. Did you read the links I provided? It is unclear to me where WP:NOR comes into place in a discussion about notability, after sources showing notability have been produced. Are we arguing "letter of the law" now? Or are we trying to understand and follow the guidelines to create a better encyclopedia? WP:BIO is clear that people need not belong to that list to be notable - it would be a very limited encyclopedia otherwise, where you could only write about 10 or 12 different topics that someone thought up. Tower in fact even fits on that list, having made critical and recognized contributions which are part of the history of his specific field; this is sourced and cited above, on the sample of references which I posted. The problem now is? Capi 13:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • I was rebutting your arguments about BBS and direct contact, which, in addition to being OR in themselves, do not lead us to any reliable sources. Furthermore, I read the links, but neither attendance at conferences nor contribution to software development confer notability, in my opinion. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:51, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • In my opinion, these sources are reliable for what they prove (which is that Len Tower was on the board and participated in the project), but they don't justify anything further. This was the kind of source I was able to dig up myself, and after a bit of digging I gave up, because I could find nothing that profiles Tower, no interviews, no one discussing his contributions. Someday, maybe someone will write a book about the history of the FSF, and then we'll have the source we need. Until then, with the article being confined to either be original research or a permanent stub, I think we shouldn't have an article. Mangojuicetalk 16:28, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Well said. :) - Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • Indeed. How about putting the verifiable parts of the above into the FSF article, and leave a redirect from Leonard H. Tower to that article? would that do? I was mentioned on BBS systems 20 years ago too, but I'm not notable. ++Lar: t/c 18:46, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                  • What possible relevance could that have? I breathe air too, but I'm not notable... that's called spurious reasoning :-) Did you redesign and rewrite, almost from scratch, what today could very easily be argued to be the most widely recognized and notable compiler worldwide, just to name one example? If you did, you would indeed be notable in your field. And that article would be about you. We have a huge article on Torvalds, who created a very widely recognized free kernel. That's great. We even have an article on a sysadmin whose sole contribution to mankind, from his article, was apparently creating a directory in an FTP server for Torvalds to put his kernel sources in. That's great too, if only a bit inconsistent given what we're arguing to delete here. Given the choice between outright deletion and a redirect, of course a redirect is the lesser evil. However, I still believe that there is no harm in leaving the article; we have information to cite, from official sources - GNU bulletin being one, the official AUTHORS file for GNU diff (only the program that allows version control systems such as Wikipedia to even work) being another, the GCC documentation being another, etc. Mangojuice noted that we don't seem to have a book telling the history of Len Tower yet; indeed, it would be nice for such a thing to exist, and we could definitely expand on the article if it did appear. Until then, though, why delete the article? As long as it doesn't have false information, or information that cannot be sourced, and given that he is notable in his field, why not keep the stub and let the natural process of Wikipedia evolve the article in its own speed? Surely you cannot expect an article to grow from a 2-line stub to a featured article over the course of 5 days or whatever, during an AfD. We have countless stubs that need enhancement, some more worthy than others (heck, some stubs are far more worthy than some articles I've seen). Why should this article not have the same chance? Capi 21:07, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                    • Dude... if you can provide a verifiable cite for "redesign and rewrite, almost from scratch, what today could very easily be argued to be the most widely recognized and notable compiler worldwide" as far as I am concerned, this discussion is over, Len is notable. But that's not what has been put forth so far, it has been about maintaining mailing lists and how much was posted in the old days of usenet. Provide a cite for the gcc assertion, a solid verifiable cite, and I'm on your side. But mostly what you have been doing is not that, it has been arguing against the guideline. ++Lar: t/c 21:24, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                      • Lar, did you notice (and read) the references I quoted above? In particular, the GNU bulletin vol 1, no 1. That bulletin establishes Tower as GNU's #2 (after Stallman) and clearly defines his role with GCC, in section "4. C compiler". GNU is the official organization which produces GCC, and that particular part was written by Stallman, the organization's founder and person who initially started GCC. Furthermore, the GNU bulletins are official GNU publications. Here is the link again, for convenience: GNU Bulletin Vol 1, no 1 Capi 21:30, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                        • What's more interesting is that the cited 1986 bulletin contradicts the GNU Compiler Collection article, which gives Stallman as the author with a date of 1987 (no inline source given). So either this part of history has been misrepresented by Stallman in the books given as references at the bottom of that article, or the article is not true to those sources either, or possibly LT bailed out of GCC development before 1987. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 01:04, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                          • Well noticed. GCC's first beta release was indeed made on March 1987 (note the post was made by Len, quoting Stallman). GCC Releases (Historical section) confirms this. Now, for a beta release to have existed on March 1987, programming must have started earlier. I believe the problem is simply that the GCC article is ambiguous. It should be corrected to state something like "GCC was first released on 1987" or something equivalent. I wouldn't say the authorship of GCC is in dispute; to my knowledge, Stallman did indeed start work on GCC, and continue on with it. Tower made substantial contributions to GCC, though, being responsable for a thorough redesign in the early stages (to lose the Pastel dependency and rewrite the thing in C), and assorted work on the front end, etc. Capi 10:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The above sources go to notability but almost none of them meet WP:V so it would still be nearly impossible to write an article on him. JoshuaZ 14:36, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Now this is confusing... How can the sources listed above not be WP:V? I mean, they exist don't they so doesn't that mean that they have Verifiability? Also, I just don't understand how some folks think that Tower is not notable. Since he is, isn't that even more of a good reason to have an article about him and his work? so that folks like the ones who are voting delete here can learn their history??? A bunch of wipersnapers and young ones clearly! I always thought that the nice thing about Wikipedia is that you could learn about folks who helped enable the Internet revolution... People who you would not normally hear about in a normal encyclopedia. -lile 23:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Some, not all, sources above are newsgroup postings. For the most part, newsgroup postings constitute self-published materials that lacked fact checking processes before publication, much they way that Wikipedia lacks a reliable pre-publication fact checking mechanism. Per WP:RS, the guideline on reliable sources, such publications, including both Wikipedia and newsgroup postings, are not reliable enough sources to meet WP:V. This can feel odd in comparison to how we handle websites on a case by case basis to those of us that remember the pre-web days of the net. I personally believe that the same skills needed to evaluate if a web page is a reliable source are the ones needed to evaluate if a newsgroup posting is a reliable source. But that isn't the community consensus. So I'll I'm adding to the article are the facts from items meeting WP:RS that I also am confident I can represent correctly. So far just the FSF and LPF's periodicals have met both tests for me. I'm quite sure the author's file portions of the software documentation is a reliable source per WP:RS, but I think it is a primary source that I personally am not qualified to interpret. So I'm now adding a fact here, a sentence there, as we identify more usable reliable sources.
      • With the sources identified to date, it is impossible to write a featured article, but that isn't a standard we even mention in most AfD discussions. Every fact in the article now is cited to a reliable source, except for Len's birthdate (which could readily be cited to one of the external links if we want to be that picky). With that level of citation, I feel that the WP:V concern about the present form of the article is a bit unreasonable. Concern about future versions should be addressed through the normal editing process. After all, WP:V is focused on defending specific facts and edits. GRBerry 00:34, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per all the arguments in previous discussion. Oh, and btw, why isn't this being relisted with the old discussion included, given that it was being argued that this would have been the right thing to do originally? Are we now not doing it anyway because we feel like it? Or pushing POV? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 07:50, 24 September 2006 (UTC) Changed to keep. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:56, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Then I vote to keep as per all the arguments in the previous discussion ;-) Joking aside, though, I would say that cleary, there is at the very least a lack of consensus as to what "the right thing to do originally" was. You and others who wanted to delete argued in the DRV that the previous discussion should had been closed for deletion because there were 3 votes to delete in the last day; myself and others who wanted to keep argued that the discussion should had been closed for keeping because there were 6 votes to keep (and no delete votes whatsoever in the first 5 days). I see no logic in your argument, you presumably see no logic in mine. Wrong Version and all that. I would submit that the whole point of having the discussion again would be to do it independently of our own individual belief that our side was injusticed and that the outcome should have obviously been this or that... Capi 13:05, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • You're twisting things once again. It was ruled in DRV that the nomination should be relisted, which means including the previous votes and listing the AfD again to gather more views. However, in this instance, the old discussion was not relisted. Instead, a new discussion was started, so all the people who originally complained that process had not been followed were apparently happy with process not being followed second time round, presumably because the offense was in their favour. If you're going to be a process wonk, you had better be consistent. Kind regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Twisting things once again, pushing POV, trying to gain unfair advantage, process wonk... Well, I'll assume good faith somehow, even though you don't really seem to. What I would like to know is how not listing the previous opinions is favoring the keep side... (or the delete side, for that matter.) Both in here and in the DRV (where at least it was on topic) you consistently mention the previous delete votes as though there were 50 regular users who argued to delete and everyone was conspiring to hide that fact. I have nothing against including the previous votes; they favored us anyway. In any case, "relist" to me implies "listing again", as in doing another vote, but hey if the normal procedure is to include previous votes then fine, message an admin and ask him to do it. My previous comment, that if we are here to relist and discuss deleting the article, then we should do it instead of playing with hidden implications of prejudice and cabal, still stands, though. Both sides feel that their point of view was the right one - that's called a disagreement. This is the AfD, not the DRV. Capi 13:58, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • You need to familiarise yourself with policy before you make assertions about how things should be done around here. SPecifically, please look up the specific meaning of "relist". A quick look at any given day's AfD listings could have given you this insight. My argument stands as before. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • And that challenges anything I said how? I specifically said I have nothing against including the previous votes. Straw men and red herrings are both quite interesting, but rather useless to a discussion, I would say. Capi 14:13, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • So let's include them, then. Either copy them in, or, make the link in the header loads more prominent. I think when we start process wonking we have to not pick and choose among processes. Samsara has it exactly right, and in my view this AfD gives the appearance of having been skewed by one side. ++Lar: t/c 14:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • Repeat something often enough and it becomes true... 1) [red herring] Someone has yet to show how not including the previous votes has skewed anything, especially when there were far more regular users arguing for keep than there were for delete. 2) [straw man] The point is moot anyway, because no one here is arguing against including the previous votes, so if anyone feels prejudiced against, by all means include them. 3) [red herring] It is hardly process wonking when we overturn an AfD that had at least 6 regular user arguments for keep over 5 days, and 3 arguments for delete in the last day, and got speedy-closed as delete (on WP:SNOW, on top of it, if anything SNOW would have meant it should be closed as keep). 4) Can we please do whatever to solve the issue of previous votes already, and go back to discussing keeping or deleting the article? Capi 14:31, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Observation: Sometimes an apparent meatpuppet storm is from bad faith attempts by LaRouchies or Scientologists to sway editorial judgement, but sometimes it's a good-faith crawling-out-of-the-woodwork by the numerous self-motivated friends of a very humble original coauthor of gcc and the guy whose code you run when you click "diff." There may be a way to tell those two kinds of cases apart in the future. LossIsNotMore 13:22, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nonsense. Even vain people have friends that may support their article being retained, especially when they clearly have limited understanding of how Wikipedia works. To my knowledge, no CheckUser was run in the end, so they may well still be sockpuppets of one or two people. Note that their comments were similarly phrased and signed in spite of other examples being available. I can just about imagine a hacker yielding to the temptation of seeing how community mechanisms work and making socks for that purpose. Getting hold of seven IPs shouldn't be too hard for someone in the field. But that's speculation. In the end, thanks for that second edit, which I edit-conflicted with. Nice touch of POV. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 13:32, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I remember back when points of view were encouraged on talk pages, and admins assumed good faith. I know how all those new users came: a friend of Len's posted about the 1st AfD on a mailing list filled with friends of Len. I know a whole lot of them, and you can easily verify their identities from the names they used, as many if not most used their full names for ids. Speaking of temptations, why is it so much easier for you to assume bad faith than good in this case? Do you have any evidence of vanity or subterfuge? LossIsNotMore 13:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I can also certify that I knew one or two because they used their real name to sign their edits. I disclosed my bias in both the prior AfD in this one. Len has in private communication disclosed encountering Samsara previously, so I ask if Samsara should also be disclosing a bias? GRBerry 14:19, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment since Loss is trying to discredit early votes with a citation line-I see plenty of cites that exist that say the man exists, yet not one that proves he's notable. I could find citations that prove I exist and my mode of transportation too, but that doesn't mean I'm notable. I still vote to delete. pschemp | talk 13:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why do you think that original coauthorship of gcc isn't notable? If you were going to number the people whose everyday lives depend on software compiled with gcc, it would easily be more than a billion -- maybe two; maybe three. How many people have written software that directly affects that many people? The man wrote Wikipedia's diff function, for goodness sake. Have you no sense of proportion? LossIsNotMore 14:00, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • We've seen no unequivocal evidence of the notability of Len's contribution to gcc. A lot of people have contributed to gcc over the years. Very few of them would be considered notable, and probably for reasons other than their gcc contributions. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 14:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Let me get this straight. The sources show that RMS decided to write the first version of the compiler in an rare extension of Pascal, resulting in a very nonportable design, and you don't think translating it into C and overhauling the parser, intermediate language, and VAX (most numerous platform of the time) target description as the second person to touch the code was a notable contribution? That is an opinion with which I not only disagree, but which I think is ridiculous, and worthly of very much ridicule, which should reflect on the quality of your education and educators. What reason could you possibly have for holding such an opinion? LossIsNotMore 14:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Try to remain civil. In speculating on my education, you're putting yourself afloat on a very fickle raft. On the other hand, I am glad that you appreciate that saying we will do something in the future is not the same as actually achieving our goals. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 08:08, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • "How many people have written software that directly affects that many people?" - Loss Um, alot have, but they were paid by Microsoft, so you don't know their names. Doesn't mean they are notable. pschemp | talk 14:23, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Are you suggesting that more software is compiled with Microsoft compilers than gcc? Please look again; you will find just the opposite. Just because a lot of people use Microsoft on their desktops doesn't mean that they use it at their bank, or their grocery store, or their gas station, or in their cars, or in their telephones, or at their factories, or airlines, or for their email and web software. The number of MSVC object files running is probably not even 1/20th the number of gcc object files in use at any given moment. LossIsNotMore 14:37, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Now let me get this straight. Since his notability now seems to hinge on whether or not he has made huge contributions to gcc, let's be very careful about this. The source says is working on this, not has completed. The source given does not indicate that Len significantly contributed to the completion of the transition from Pastel to C. Furthermore, the Wikipedia article on gcc does not mention Tower in spite of citing three sources, two of them by Stallman. It seems that at least one person is taking or being given more credit than he deserves. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:38, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I believe this can be explained by the fact that RMS depends on income from speaking fees, and Tower does not. However, I will take another look at the gcc article. LossIsNotMore 15:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Not wanting to involve myself too much in this line of discussion, I would just note that the Stallman sources cited in the GCC article do not go much toward authorship or development history; they are reference manuals, they discuss usage and technical characteristics. Regardless of this, I really don't think going down a path of "which one person wrote more lines of code" or "someone is lieing" is productive or even relevant. Stallman is generally recognized as the person who created GCC; he did not do so alone, naturally. Tower is one person who is cited officially as having been a very important contributor. He was the person resonsable for changing GCC from an initial design which was written in Pastel, non-portable, impractical and unmaintainable (keeping the compiler in that language would have meant a project within a project, as there was no other compiler which could compile Pastel in the first place) to something completely different and modular, written in C, a design which evolved into what we have now. We have an article on Torvalds, who created the Linux kernel, but we also have articles on a few important contributors; should we delete those, because "many people have contributed to Linux over the years"? Clearly not. Please do not reduce this to a matter of "who was the one guy who created GCC so that we can keep him and delete the other" or whatever; they are both important figures, in GCC and not only (sources have been listed for other projects besides GCC - e.g. GNU diff - and other things besides programming as well) along with the rest of the other hackers on whom we already have articles. Capi 15:53, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • (edit conf) capi, we're trying to establish whether among all the hundreds of people who've contributed to gcc, Len Tower is sufficiently outstanding to be considered "notable". We simply can't afford to have an article on every contributor to gcc. Now, where's my vim? ;) Also, can you guys get used to writing your comments once rather than keep amending them, because I'm getting very fed up with these edit conflicts. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • Perhaps you already know this, but if you can improve the diff engine, then you can cut down on the number of edit conflicts that occur. But I digress. Do you claim that RMS's statement that Len, in 1986, "is working" on the conversion from Pastel to C may be reorganized per WP:OR into the fact that he "has worked" on that conversion, and was the first and for at least several months the only full time staff to work on that task, or, do you believe that the adjustment of verb tenses constitutes original research? LossIsNotMore 16:07, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete No doubt a wonderful chap and perhaps moderately important in the history of GNU, but I don't see the sources. Insufficient reliable sources==no article, I'm afraid. --kingboyk 18:24, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Notability (section break against edit conflicts)

  • Secondly, does anyone dispute that being the second person, and first full time FSF staff, to work on converting gcc from Pastel to C is notable, even if the task was not completed by one person? LossIsNotMore 17:06, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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