Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Circle of Friends (social network)

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. seicer | talk | contribs 04:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Circle of Friends (social network)

Circle of Friends (social network) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

This article is apparently part of a series of articles written to puff the resume of Jonathan Bishop (See discussion here). Bishop did indeed develop a website in 1999 that contained a feature called Circle of Friends, but there is no source indicating that he was the first to develop such a feature, nor is there a source suggesting that websites such as Friendster copied his technique (a claim made in the Friendster article), nor is there any evidence that the technique was not obvious and available to all. The two sources given in this article are both written after the claims first appeared in Wikipedia, suggesting that WP is probably the source for the sources. It seems that the technique is non-notable, that attribution to Bishop is questionable, and the article has been written to promote his career. Anthon.Eff (talk) 22:23, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

• delete unverified/verifiable self-promotion.--Buridan (talk) 23:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
• Delete unless verified.--Troikoalogo (talk) 23:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

• Delete non notable subject self promotion. Teapotgeorge^Talk 07:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I am not going to vote in this debate. But it may be worth pointing out that the proposer Anthon.Eff and seconder Buridan (real name Jeremy Hunsinger) are both associates of Barry Wellman, who though the account Bellagio99 has sought to bolster his position in online communities and weaken mine. --Jonathan Bishop(talk) 09:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The above user may have a conflict of interest in this discussion, as they have mostly edited articles in relation to Jonathan Bishop (ColonelBuendia99 (talk) 18:43, 9 September 2008 (UTC))

Dear User:Jonathan Bishop: You can rest assured that I do not consider you to be my peer or my competitor. I don't have competitors: I have colleagues. I collaborate with many of them happily.

My initial interest stemmed from my lack of awareness of major claims for the Circle of Friends that User:WelshAspie put on the Virtual Community and I think another WP page. Primarily, I wanted to understand more, in the interests of scholarship. Secondarily, I didn't want to misled readers of WP in case the claims were exaggerated or unfounded.

Please, do try to take the role of the other (George Herbert Mead) and stop violating WP:Defame and WP:Outing. You keep misconstruing my motives. I feel very sorry for you, but your actions keep inflicting hurt upon yourself. But you also persist in Defamation and Outing attempts, making it hard for me to feel sorry for you. You also are demanding a huge amount of attention. Bellagio99 (talk) 13:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I think you need to appreciate that as you are a sociologist at the University of Toronto you are far removed from the realities of a researcher and businessman who is also an elected representative. I can see why Richard Branson doesn't want to be a politician belonging to a political party - He would go from being universally respected by the public to being universally despised by his opponents. If your intention wasn't as I suggested then I apologise, as I should have assumed good faith. But you must understand that it is hard for me to do so in the climate I find myself in, where the media I consume, in my local media in the newspaper and on the Web, is full of people from opposition parties constantly attacking my colleagues and myself to make themselves look better. Unfortunately I tarred you with the same brush, though this was only after reading material posted by yourself and others --Jonathan Bishop (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

**whilst that may be true, it would be useful if you could comment on what he's claiming, and provide some verification that/if he's wrong.--Troikoalogo (talk) 11:35, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

• • I have posted this article on my blog. You will find my reflections there. --Jonathan Bishop (talk) 20:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

• This is not part of a plot against you Jonathan. It's part of the normal process of protecting the integrity of WP. Barry Wellman is one of the most notable sociologists alive today, so I know who he is. But I have never met him, and it is very much stretching the facts to call me his "associate".--Anthon.Eff (talk) 12:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

i do know barry and i value him as a colleague, but alas i don't edit wikipedia in any way because he tells me to. I edit wikipedia to improve it and make it more reliable for my students and other students. as for 'circle of friends' as a technique, my first public use of the technique was 1998 when i used it as part of the circular encyclopedia project. I'm pretty sure at that point in time it was common usage and non-novel.--Buridan (talk) 15:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

So you're claiming in 1998 you used a multi-user system that has the customisability and manageability of a instant messaging buddy list, with the interactivity of a hypertext application, so that it was possible to click on your buddies' name and see their buddies' names, like what I developed in 1999? If it wasn't a novel step, by combining two separate technologies, then how come Friendster recently got a patent for making a 'novel step' by combining two significantly related technologies? --Jonathan Bishop (talk) 20:46, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

yep, pretty much, web-based friend system with chat in hypertext, used an esoteric little language for mac ip server, fun stuff. people get patents all the time, sometimes they stand, sometimes they don't. the patent system is not made to certify anything other than x party has made claim to this as novel, and unless there is reason to believe otherwise, the claim is considered valid'. I've not read their specific patent, i can't speculate about its validity. i can say that we don't have verification of your claims, as indicated above and i likely tossed the last dvd-rom copy of our system seeing as the software has be obsolete for 7 years or so. --Buridan (talk) 03:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• Delete More non-notable self-promotion involving a user with a history of COI contributions. (ColonelBuendia99 (talk) 14:05, 9 September 2008 (UTC))

The above user may have a conflict of interest in this discussion, as they have mostly edited articles in relation to Jonathan Bishop --Jonathan Bishop (talk) 14:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

• Delete Poorly sourced and poorly referenced Pontyboy (talk) 14:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The above user may have a conflict of interest in this discussion, as they have mostly edited articles in relation to Jonathan Bishop --Jonathan Bishop (talk) 14:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

• Delete This subject does not appear notable enough for its own page. I also have some concerns about the conflict of interest issues highlighted above. (222.130.179.91 (talk) 18:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC))
• Delete Does not seem notable or extensive enough for its own page. There is very little info. In addition, it is terribly written and hard to understand.Armoire (talk) 22:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The above user may be a sock puppet, as this was their first edit --Jonathan Bishop (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• Query: It occurs to me that Circle of Friends is claimed to be open source software. My understanding of open source is that it is published and available to others to peruse and modify. It would be useful if [[Jonathan Bishop, the creator of this putative software point readers (and not just on WP) to the code -- and the description -- of Circle of Friends. Perhaps this has been done, and I may have missed it. Bellagio99 (talk) 13:54, 10 September 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. The current version of the article does not seem credible. It seems to be asserting a claim to have invented a whole technology, that would require much more data to believe. Lack of sufficient reliable sources is why I would delete it. The only source provided, a 2007 article by Christine Rosen in New Atlantis, suggests that she considers Jonathan Bishop to be the inventor of the 'Circle of Friends' technology. (She does not explain how she arrived at that conclusion, and his name only appears once in the article). I think we would need more. EdJohnston (talk) 17:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, I have emailed Christine Rosen several times, neutrally asking for the source of her information, and haven't received a reply. New Atlantis is not a specialized computer magazine, but a feature magazine written for intelligent lay readers that is (in the words of its Google blurb): "A quarterly journal devoted to science and technology issues and their relation to social and political affairs." I hadn't heard of it before, altho there is lots that I don't know. Bellagio99 (talk) 21:33, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• Merge with Jonathan Bishop -Politicool (talk) 19:41, 10 September 2008 (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.