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 (no consensus). TigerShark (talk) 22:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

David A. Wheeler[edit]

AfDs for this article:

Non-notable biography. David is an editor in good standing and has been with the project for years; in addition, he's contributed some essays and tools which Wikipedians are prone to come into contact with. As a user page the content is fine. As an article, however, it's demonstrative of WP's systemic biases towards free software and Wikipedia personalities, as were these not factors the notable sources (primarily an essay well known in the Linux community seven years ago) would not be enough to warrant a biography. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: fails WP:N, self published sources don't provide any evidence of notability. Aujourd'hui, maman est morte (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 18:42, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per nom. ukexpat (talk) 19:57, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - the odd thing is that he would seem to pass WP:PROF but not WP:NOTE, which suggests there is some inconsistency in the respective policies. ~~If he isn't an academic, I would lean toward delete, as I don't think he's done enough to qualify under WP:NOTE.~~ Gatoclass (talk) 20:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC) Striking the latter comment as I didn't look at his homepage and it may be there is enough there to establish notability per DGG. I just don't have time to check ATM. Gatoclass (talk) 08:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Seems there's a lot more to be said than is in the article, see the home page http://www.dwheeler.com/dwheeler.html for additional books an, publications, and references to news stories about him. DGG (talk) 04:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per DGG; Good point, Gatoclass. Our definition of academic may be too restrictive, or susceptible of overrestrictive interpretation. People like James Lovelock or Julian Barbour are respected in the academic world just as if they were professors somewhere, but don't happen to have academic jobs, experts in many industries might qualify if their work appears in academic journals. Reaching back into the 19th century gives multitudes of famous examples - Darwin of course. The Grassmanns and Karl Weierstrass were high-school, gymnasium teachers, as was this century's Kurt Heegner. Perhaps it should say academic/professor/scholar/expert, or say that if someone satisfies any of the six criteria we give they are considered academics.John Z (talk) 08:00, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It's easy to err in responding to a percieved bias toward Free Software and Wikipedians with a bias against them. Wheeler's work is notable although this article doesn't cover it well. Rather than delete, I think a rewrite is appropriate. Bruce Perens (talk) 15:21, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - is "might be notable" a reason to have an article now? Forgive my cynicism, but while I feel like he might be notable, I'm not seeing any independent sources that say so...but I can be convinced. Any assertions of notability - step to the front please. Frank | talk 02:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete No third party reliable sources provide significant coverage. Extra sources from subjects webpage cited by DGG seem to be using him as an expert, not about him. gnfnrf (talk) 21:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, mostly based on his publication of two books and the fact that his essay on the economics of open-source software has been cited in 84 scholarly publications. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:47, 20 June 2008 (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.