Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Val Henson

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. - Mailer Diablo 15:56, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Val_Henson

Subject is not notable

This page has been prod'd twice before by others, and removed against the rules, without discussion. As others have noted, it appears to have originally been written by a fan-boy impressed merely with the fact that Miss Henson is female and attractive. Consensus in the talk page appears to be that her contributions as a programmer are not significant enough to warrant a Wikipedia page, and there's debate whether her "women in computer science" writings make her a notable figure. I don't think they do, but either way, this should be resolved with a proper discussion, rather than silent Prod removals.

(personal attack removed—Phil | Talk 12:01, 17 October 2006 (UTC))

Rabbi 23:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

• On a procedural note, anyone can remove a prod tag without explanation (although explanation is recommended). Aside from that, delete as nominated for failure to meet WP:BIO. Stifle (talk) 21:28, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Quoting from the prod template: "If this template is removed, it should not be replaced". The error in procedure in this case has been restating the prod tag by the anonymous users. -- Petri Krohn 00:16, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. I'm concerned about the nominator's provenance, but I'll set that aside for one moment. Searching Google News, I see that Henson is quoted in a recent article in IT Manager's Journal. She's also contributed to two major O/S kernels and she's also contributed to open source development in other ways. I can't see a good reason to delete this article. --Tony Sidaway 13:02, 17 October 2006 (UTC) Withdrawing comment. I'll let the subject's comments take preference in this instance. --Tony Sidaway 11:34, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
• Comment -- the subject requests deletion on Talk:Val Henson Thayvian 13:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Subject's request is not very relevant, failure to meet WP:BIO is. JoshuaZ 21:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep. Meets WP:BIO by being the subject of several biographies and meets google test. No reason to delete a good article. Just needs expantion is all. ~ PHDrillSergeant...§ 21:09, 17 October 2006 withdrawing per Tony Sidaway's withdrawal. ~ PHDrillSergeant...§ 22:01, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Question Which sources are you referring to when you say that she has been the subject of several biographies? JoshuaZ 21:20, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: I have added two bio's to the article. Another is here. John Vandenberg 09:48, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
      • Question: Does it matter that all three of those bios were most likely written by the subject herself? Rabbi 10:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. "Made minor contributions to the Linux and Solaris kernels" is argument enough to delete. Dr Zak 23:22, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. She has requested deletion, and, until the WiC movement grows, she's not really a celebrity for much else. - rik. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.37.186.238 (talk • contribs)
• Delete. I was mistaken about her contribution to the linux kernel. Still, why delete the article without debate? - Ioerror 02:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. (Disclaimer: I'm the subject.) Ironically, to improve the case for deletion, I feel it's best to correct some misconceptions in the original request for deletion.
  • "Written by a fan-boy" - The original article was a cut and paste from a speaker biography I wrote for, I believe, Ottawa Linux Symposium, with the addition of one paragraph about my Linux Weekly News (LWN) articles. Someone commented that it seems creepy and stalkerish; if so, I have no one but myself to blame. In fact, it may very well have violated Wikipedia's self-authoring rules. :) I am not sure why at least one person has repeatedly interpreted it as the result of infatuation, given the actual text of the article, but it's not a good argument for deletion and detracts from the good arguments for deletion.
  • "[Because she's] female and attractive" - The original article went up shortly after I first began writing for LWN and made explicit reference to the LWN articles. Given that I've been female and attractive for some years, but only recently began writing for LWN, the LWN articles are probably the proximate cause. Writing for LWN does not automatically make someone notable (although it will earn you a little extra cash).
  • "Consensus in the talk page [...] programming contributions are not significant" - No argument here that my code is insufficient for notability, but the only consensus I can detect on the talk page is that I'm so pretty that I intrinsically warp the minds of male Wikipedians. There's certainly no comments on any of my patches to either Linux or Solaris (perhaps because it's easier to look at photos than read kernel patches.)
  • "Debate [if] women in computer science writings [make her] notable figure" - I think "debate" is too charitable a word; this does not make me notable either.

While I am sympathetic to the desire to have more articles on women in computing in Wikipedia, I don't think this article will have a significant positive effect, and will all probability dishearten such an audience given the current propensity for discussion of female subjects' appearances and their effects on men. Given the enthusiasm of the various editors (hi, Rabbi!) and the relative lack of third-party source material, I still feel that the wiser course of action at this time is deletion.

For me, the loudest knell of doom for this article is the fact that even people who like me (or, heaven forbid, are infatuated with me) can't clearly explain why I'm notable. Therefore, I'm not.

Valhenson 07:54, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

• Comment:Hi Val -- your use of the phrase "even people who like me" makes me want to point out that my nomination for deletion doesn't have anything to do with not liking you. It should be clear by now that I don't like the paper of yours that I keep hearing mentioned, and am concerned that people coming to this page because of that paper may come away with the impression, based on your biography here, that you have a cryptography background on par with John Black's. I don't particularly think it's "mean minded" to compare backgrounds and competency domains of two parties in a debate, but given the other issues about notability it seems easiest to avoid the debate and have the entry deleted than have it explained that the Compare-By-Hash paper wasn't written by (or apparently peer-reviewed by, judging from the workshop's program committee) someone with a adequate understanding of hash functions.

In my opinion, it's better that the controversy over that paper subside than to continue to confuse developers who don't wish to become experts themselves in the subject of hash functions, but simply wish to have an authorative source to turn to and direct them in proper usage of these primitives. I suspect this is likely to happen now that a peer-reviewed rebuttal has been published in academia -- but with John Black lacking a Wikipedia bio page explaining his background, and with edits expressing limitations of your background in this area being removed for NPOV reasons, I'm uncertain of a good way of presenting a coherent, unconfusing explantion of the controversy of the paper that satisfies NPOV and doesn't denigrate you unfairly. (The Usenix committee really fell down in accepting it, in my opinion, and did you a disservice by doing so.) It's important that developers think about the sorts of questions raised in your paper, but it's also important that they have an accurate source at their disposal from which to seek the answers to those questions.

It's rare that a good programmer is also a good cryptographer, and I hope I've made it clear that I'm not trying to imply that your lack of "kernel hacker celebrity status" means that you're bad at programming. One's level of fame is quite often orthogonal to one's talents or abilities. And as for my comments regarding the initial post and the presumed motives of the author -- I was attempting to sum up what had been previously expressed by others on the talk page. (I believe the original author represented it as his own writing, which explains the confusion.) I think we share the belief that your gender should be irrelevent, or only minorly significant, when considering your notability as an open source developer (and certainly not more significant than the actual code you've written!)

Thanks for commenting.

Rabbi 09:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Comment: To summarize, the above argues for deletion because the mere existence of a Wikipedia article about a person might improperly sway readers' opinions in favor of one of the subject's many publications. It is possible there are better arguments for deletion; if so, I plead that they not suffer by association with this one. On a side note, I appreciate John Black's criticism of my work, which has improved slightly as a result, and also his courtesy in attaching his name to his criticisms. Valhenson 09:50, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. The point about third-party source material is well-made. "Just needs expansion" -- with what? Blogs and personal websites are not WP:RS, and code doesn't provide much biographical detail. More pressing is the "part of a cast of thousands". I don't think she currently meets WP:BIO. We can still include her name in the Linuxchix article (and relevant kernel articles?) without it needing to be a link; but there is no need for a stub, let alone an article. Telsa (talk) 09:05, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. Her primary qualification appears to be her gender. Her kernel contributions have been minor, and her publication record is not particularly significant. While she might warrant mention on a page about women in computer science, she does not appear anywhere near notable enough for Wikipedia. With respect to the appalling compare-by-hash paper, that's the downside of being an academic. If you co-invent RSA, everyone knows your name. If you present a braino of a paper at a major conference, everyone knows your name. Rob 06:26, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

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.