Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Luther Welsh

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 delete. Skomorokh 01:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Luther Welsh

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Non-notable according to WP:N or WP:PROF. Only accomplishment seems to be running a program to find large prime numbers and finding one. Robin (talk) 13:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete to me neither finding one prime number nor serving on the board of GIMP is notable enough for a WP page. Google returns a few thousands counts on "Luther Welsh", but, many are not this Luther Welsh, and many are simply an echo of a few pages (wikipedia article and a few cites of it). Materialscientist (talk) 08:09, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - I think he passes notability criteria in WP:BIO. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep - one minor discovery might be WP:NEWS. Bearian'sBooties (talk) 15:35, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:37, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. -- Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:38, 1 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I would have thought that the discovery of a large Mersenne prime confers notability. What do mathematicians think? Xxanthippe (talk) 02:27, 1 September 2009 (UTC).[reply]
- Comment. If that were it, to me, it would be a clear case of WP:BIO1E. What I'm less sure of is whether his role in GIMPS is enough to elevate him about that "known only for one thing" standard. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete As David Eppstein, notes, all available evidence points to the fact that Welsh is notable for at most one thing: the discovery of a new Mersenne prime. As a number theorist weighing in on the value of this achievement, it is my opinion that this makes Welsh insufficiently notable for a wikipedia article. (Moreover, what does the article say, or could it say, beyond this one fact?) It is appropriate to list this achievement in the article Mersenne prime, as it already is. Plclark (talk) 04:38, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Not even close to WP:PROF and, as for WP:BIO, we have a little press about his discovery of a Mersenne prime but almost nothing else. I searched hard for sources a week ago (before I did, the article had basically the same content but was totally unsourced) and could find almost nothing about him to add to the article. As discussed above, I think this falls under WP:BIO1E: his discovery of the prime is a notable event that is already covered under Mersenne prime, his work with GIMPS does not really add notability to the article, and I've already included the only other interesting and verifiable factoid (his coinage of the GIMPS name) to the GIMPS article. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I was thinking of suggesting a merge to Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, but the merge-worthy info is already there. His name does not seem a likely search term so I see little point in a redirect; this is the only thing he's known for, and if you're into Mersenne primes, the link from there to GIMPS is already prominent. Procedural Comment: the relisting suggests WikiProject Deletion sorting is in need of more members, or deletion sorting needs to be encouraged or made more prominent on the WP:AFD page. If this had been listed in WikiProject Deletion sorting/Academics and educators or WikiProject Deletion sorting/Science initially I doubt it would have needed relisting. Qwfp (talk) 18:42, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question David E, if the one thing is of long term historic interest it passes the bar at BLP1E. So the qy is, how important is the discovery of this number? DGG ( talk ) 20:59, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Better to ask Plclark, as he's an actual number theorist; I've only played with number theory. Nowadays the search for Mersenne primes has been automated by GIMPs to the point where I think that the notability of any individual discovery has been diminished, but his discovery was prior to that period and has more of the flavor of an individual wildcatter striking black gold. There are plenty of reliable sources about the discovery and I think it does have long-term significance. But to me, passing the bar at BIO1E is less about the size of the 1E itself and more about whether there is anything to say about the subject that is not more directly about the 1E. In this case, there doesn't seem to be much to say about Welsh other than his discovery. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:46, 2 September 2009 (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.