Talk:Benjamin Mako Hill

Untitled
Contradiction in date of birth: one place says 81, another 1980 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.167.158.158 (talk) 13:10, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Acetarium
What is it? Why does he own it? http://www.acetarium.com/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.139.38.231 (talk) 11:12, 15 June 2007
 * it's probably not real, like acetaria. 18.85.19.47 04:36, 11 August 2007 (UTC)


 * What is Acetaria and why do you claim that is not real? — m a k o ๛  17:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I have seen the Acetarium. It is real. Aaronshaw (talk) 15:52, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Poetry
"Hill is known within the hacker community for his essays and innovative package-name poetry."

...What? --24.184.131.16 (talk) 02:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

he coordinated the construction of a community around the Ubuntu Project as project "community manager" (later succeeding the role to Jono Bacon)

Is this supposed to say "... later ceding the role ..."? BretMartin (talk) 23:36, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

editedhere flag
Can someone remove the "editedhere=yes" tag from tag at the top of this talk page? As it stands it says my "editing has included significant contributions to this article" and points people to the WP:COI and WP:AUTOBIO and WP:NPOV policy pages.

I've certainly made a bunch of edits to other things, but I've really tried not to edit this article. Looking through the history, I think I've made four edits to it. Three were changes to categories and one was a link fix. You can see them all here here:

I would do it myself on any other article but I'd rather have someone take a look at the evidence and make the changes themselves because I do take WP:COI and WP:AUTOBIO seriously. :) Thanks! — m a k o ๛  23:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Done! Thanks for providing the diffs. Steven Walling  20:04, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Institute for Cultural Diplomacy
I'm removing a section from this talk page because (a) it was copy-and-pasted from these two edits to Talk:Institute for Cultural Diplomacy and because (b) it pertained to a conversation I was having in my capacity as an editor elsewhere. I think the edits were meant for my user talk page. Perhaps this confusion is just the cost of having a username that is the same as your article name. — m a k o ๛  16:01, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

Potential sources
A few third-party sources that don't quite fit into the current article but could be useful:



Dreamyshade (talk) 08:31, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Added these to the section on Other Work as they refer to his writing on software and research on online communities. Thanks for pre-formatting them! Aaron (talk) 04:43, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Sourcing concerns
Consistent with WP:PS, I have removed the primary source tags from the sections on "Biography" and "Debian." Just a note to — in all of these cases, it seems to me that the primary sources referenced are not used to establish notability, but to document facts. In addition, the sources follow common sense (for example: a very effective method for documenting the fact that the subject of the article is a professor at the University of Washington is to link to his faculty profile there). If you have specific concerns about specific citations, let's discuss them here. Aaron (talk) 23:38, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

The addition of COI tag to the page should be accompanied by a message identifying the precise concerns, so we can address them and remove the tag. Please can identify the major contributions they believe justify the COI tag? Thanks! ClareTheSharer (talk) 15:19, 14 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Oops, I intended to add template:third-party, my bad. The COI tags were placed because it is obvious that some editors closely associated with the subject intend to keep the article smooth, shiny and erect, and hopefully someone will come along and make it less of an obvious puff piece. Eddymason (talk) 19:14, 14 November 2014 (UTC)


 * , thanks for clarifying this aspect of your concern. I'm a bit confused still — it seems like you're saying that you meant to add the third-party template in addition to the COI tags? Or did you mean to add the third-party concern in addition to the COI concern? Also, could you please clarify your vague characterization about the motivations of "some editors" since you seem to assume the opposite of good faith without providing any clear examples, evidence, or support for your claims. Along these lines, I encourage you to identify specific edits, citations, and/or issues that you feel are problematic and explain the reasons why rather than continuing to tag whole sections in a blanket manner. For example, if your concerns about WP:COI are related to any of my edits, I would be happy to discuss particulars. I have worked hard to ensure that any edits I have made to the article are consistent with WP:COIU in that I (1) disclosed my potential COI publicly in the corresponding AfD discussion (and I can happily do so again on this page); and that all of my edits have been focused on maintaining WP:BLP standards; and adding/improving reliable sources in response to requests and tags (many of which you placed here!). If some of these edits are controversial for specific reasons, please elaborate! Perhaps we can get input from someone like ClareTheSharer and find a way to improve the article. Aaron (talk) 21:04, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Potential COI disclosure: as I mentioned in the AfD discussion of this article, my professional and personal relationship with the subject of this article may place me in a potential WP:COI situation (we are collaborators on several research projects). As a result, I have attempted to follow WP:COIU in all of my edits, focusing on non-controversial edits, adding/improving sources, and responding to requests/tags. Aaron (talk) 21:39, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I would like to point Mr Hill to the guideline on canvassing, because he tweeted that this article was up for deletion, and asked his followers for help. This was "retweeted" by, as seen here (since I am unable to permalink to Marcellmars' retweet). As for the COI tag, why do you want to remove it? Do you disagree that this article has been edited by people with conflicts of interest? Why would you want to hide that fact from other Wikipedians? As for the third-party template, this invites Wikipedians to add independent sources to the tagged sections. Notice that has responded to some of my tags by adding appropriate sourcing, and the third-party template invites other Wikipedians to do the same. Eddymason (talk) 14:11, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * In line with WP:CANVAS, I mentioned the fact that my nomination was being deleted openly, with a neutral message that asked for improvements, references, and general opinions, to an audience of people who are interested enough to follow me on Twitter but the vast majority of which I do not know (I'll understand if you are skeptical about the last bit but the first two criteria seem uncontroversial). I did/do not think that a tweeting the fact of the AfD crossed the line but I will be more careful in the future. It was not intended as votestacking and participation in the AfD seems to suggest that it did not have this effect. As I have said above, I believe that only two 2/7 keep !votes were from people I know or recognize. Both declared their relationship in the discussion and it seems obvious that the decision would have been the same without them. — m a k o ๛  17:22, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I have not so far seen any concrete concern to justify the three COI tags in the article. Please can anyone who has concerns justifying these tags (may be ) document them here so we can address them together? The fact editors know the subject is not sufficient justification if their edits are non-controversial and adequately sourced. ClareTheSharer (talk) 15:33, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There are not three COI tags on the article. What are you talking about? Eddymason (talk) 15:38, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There are a COI tag and two Third-Party tags that display to readers with a similar message, all recently added. These are all (IMO) intended as temporary signals indicating work is needed. What is the specific work that's needed, please? If there are no concrete, addressable concerns I will remove them. ClareTheSharer (talk) 17:02, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * The third-party templates are self explanatory:"This section may rely excessively on sources too closely associated with the subject, preventing the article from being verifiable and neutral. Please help improve it by replacing them with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources. (November 2014)"The COI tag is intended to be temporary, but the third-party tags should remain until the primary sources are "replac[ed...] with more appropriate citations to reliable, independent, third-party sources." Eddymason (talk) 17:53, 18 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for removing the COI tag, I think that's appropriate. I still don't see which of the citations in the two sections with Third-party tags are offensive; apart from one of Mr Hill's own sources which seems OK as a second citation, the rest appear to me to be from trustworthy sources. Please explain so we can all go look for alternatives. ClareTheSharer (talk) 19:16, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

(outdent)Mako's sources are primary, the university pages and Debian/Ubuntu are secondary. What is missing is a third party source, and the tag should be removed after some sources independent of Mako and his university and FLOSS projects are found. Let's be honest here, this is a puff piece, which is fine... there are many of these on Wikipedia, but they are mostly tagged when sourcing is inappropriate, so my original assessment stands: "smooth, shiny, and erect". These tags should only be removed only when a third party independent reliable source is found and added. Eddymason (talk) 07:37, 19 November 2014 (UTC)

Notability
The AfD closed as keep, but I think there's sadly too much COI/collegue helping a colleague here. Majority of arguments focused on WP:NACADEMICS #7, i.e. "The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity.", which I find a poorly-defined, easy to abuse "guideline". How to distinguish substantial impact from insubstantial? Yes, the subject has been doing wonderful activist work on Linux and such. He deserves praise for it. But Wikipedia is not a place for his friends and collegues to do so. They should do it by writing articles about his contributions in "reliable sources". Then we could cite them here, and the case would be closed. So, in the spirit of friendly collaboration, rather than rant about why the sources here are poor, how about some of you who respect the subhect try to write about him for some more? If we can get some higher profile sources to cover his person, this issue would go away. As it is, however, I am still afraid this is an article with notability issues, saved only because of the intervention of the subject's COI friends (i.e. a number of Wikipedians voting to keep, because, well, they like the subject, and consider this AfD an attack of a SPA on a well-respected editor). Well, I respect the subject too, but I believe notability should be applied equally to everyone. Wikipedians writing about Wikipedians is a strong COI, and we should be extra vigilant in that area. The community has decided to keep this article. In the greater scheme of things this is not an issue to fight over, but I do believe Wikipedia's principles were compromised here. In my view, rather than "this article was saved from a bad-faithed SPA", the narrative should be "this article was saved because Wikipedians are more equal on Wikipedia than everyone else". Perhaps something for the subject to write a research piece about? --Ego Hunter (talk) 09:01, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * For the record, I have no relationship with Mr Hill and am unaware of ever meeting him. May I suggest to you that the "respect" so many people have for him is what's otherwise known as "notability" to the non-Wikipedia-insider layman? ClareTheSharer (talk) 10:12, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * 's argument seems to be that Wikipedians are always conflicted when it comes other Wikipedians because we are all colleagues in our work in Wikipedia. FWIW, out of the seven arguments for keep in the AfD, the only people I even recognize as having even met are and  and both described their relationship clearly in the AfD. — m a k o  ๛  19:14, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * , if you are concerned that the criteria of notability are not applied fairly in general to all Wikipedians, you really need to raise that concern up in an appropriate venue (e.g., a discussion of WP:N). That's a perfectly reasonable concern and one that does merit further consideration by the community. However, I hope you can understand that trying to advance this debate by proposing multiple individual articles about Wikipedians for deletion is why many people involved in the AfD for this page and other discussions of your edits feel that you have created a SPA and are engaged in a classic example of WP:POINT. At the end of the day, I think that the attention your AfD proposal brought to this article resulted in several editors improving the citations to secondary, reliable sources that more effectively document notability. If the reasonable application of notability criteria is your primary concern, I think you've advanced your objective in this case. Aaron (talk) 19:36, 17 November 2014 (UTC)


 * The notability ship has sailed. Mr Hill's biography is here to stay, unless he gets caught doing something really embarrassing, in which case he will get the Sarah Stierch treatment. I would suggest you drop this one, for it is lost. Mr Hill at least wrote the book, literally, on Ubuntu, which is why that section is sourced as well as it is (not that there is not room for improvement, mind you). Eddymason (talk) 14:11, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Third Party Sources
The recent AfD and the discussion about the need for third-party sources made me realize that I've personally never done a good job of tracking media coverage of my work. Toward that end, I just did a search on several major academic search engines and put together a first pass of a list of press and media coverage. I've posted on my personal website here: http://mako.cc/press

I guess editors here might find it useful for improving this article and finding third-party references for claims made in the website.

Keep in mind that I made this list for my own website so it includes sources that might be a little too bloggy for Wikpiedia. That said, it includes in-depth profiles of my academic research in places like the Financial Times, Wired UK, the Boston Globe, Linux.com, Linux Journal, and others. It also includes quite a few profiles and interviews and descriptions of my other projects and activism in Die Zeit, Ars Technica, TechTarget, Tech Dirt, The Register, The Guardian, Dr. Dobbs and others. It also includes some particularly important examples of newspapers quoting me as an expert including the New York Times, The Guardian, Slate, and Computer Weekly.

I won't add any of these to the biography myself but I hope this helps those of you that are working hard to improve it! — m a k o ๛  22:41, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

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