Talk:Steve Gilliard

Biography assessment rating comment
WikiProject Biography Assessment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. -- 172.148.214.94 03:39, 6 June 2007 (UTC) -- It's me. -- Yamara 03:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion
Don't delete just yet. Gilliard was a reasonably popular left-wing blogger. --One Salient Oversight 03:46, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Let this article evolve a bit, Steve only just died. Notability isn't an issue, the quality of the article is. But it will get better as word gets out. Myrrander 17:47, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

This article should definitely remain. Gilliard played an admirable role in pioneering the use of the Interent for unfettered political discourse, and spoke with an unprecedented candor about race relations in this country. --85.83.126.224 22:11, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

"Unprecedented" ? Not one single person has ever spoken with equal candor about race relations?

Notability of Bloggers
I understand that many bloggers may not be considered "notable". Steve Gilliard's death has been announced around some very prominent left-wing blogs like Daily Kos, Americablog and Eschaton. Moreover, as the article shows, Jeff Jacoby from the Boston Globe dedicated part of a column to criticising him. --One Salient Oversight 04:05, 3 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Just adding a bit of disclosure... Ms. Nunes has personal history with the Daily Kos site according to a frontpage diary, and may have personal reasons for the article's deletion. Not saying her argument is automatically disqualified, but just letting people know. --kizzle 04:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

There are other bloggers on Wikipedia on level with Gilliard. Comparing him to Krugman or Ivins isn't really fair because they were "traditional" media as opposed to news bloggers. Steve was one of the first (and one of the best) bloggers and a guy who helped political blogging (especially left-wing blogging) to take off. He deserves to stay. Myrrander 00:25, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

DELETE - Clearly does not meet the notability standard. TJIC 02:43, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

According to notability standards, "Creative professionals: scientists, academics, economists, professors, authors, editors, journalists, filmmakers, photographers, artists, architects, engineers, and other creative professionals.

* The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by their peers or successors."

He was definitely widely cited by his peers, in the liberal blogsphere and therefore meets the notability requirement. If Atrios, Markos, Josh Marshall are all citing him, I think he should remain.


 * So are you saying these white, male bloggers are the only measure of authority for inclusion in Wikipedia? --Liza Sabater, Publisher www.culturekitchen.com 207.237.24.22 15:35, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * BTW - I am all for KEEP, I just don't believe these three people should be the only reason why he gets included.

I believe Steve Gilliard's notability should be settled by his notoriety -- in late 2005 he photoshopped an image of African-American Republican Senate candidate (and then-Maryland Lt. Gov) Michael Steele to be wearing blackface, terming him "Simple Sambo." It drew coverage in the Baltimore Sun and elswehere, which led now-Gov. Tim Kaine to pull advertising from Gilliard's website. Few bloggers draw news coverage of their own, yet Gilliard was one; if endorsements of notable products count toward the notability requirement, perhaps Gilliard's emphatic non-endorsement of Steele should count as well. Moreover, he was one of the very first regular contributors to Daily Kos and one of the few popular enough to strike out on his own (successfully (and as I understand it, draw his primary income from his blog)). Love him or hate him, he was controversial in his time and certainly well-known in political blogging circles. (Full disclosure being that I did interact with him infrequently). I also think Gilliard meets the notability requirement for web content. But what this really goes to show is that Wikipedia needs a notability standard for bloggers. As others have noted, bloggers of lesser note are included in Wikipedia, and if this actually comes to a formal debate, I will vote Keep. --WWB 01:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

KEEP - As stated above by WWB, he meets not just one but two elements of the notability requirement: Widely cited and regarded by peers (and those peers themselves highly notable figures like Josh Marshall and Markos Moulitas) and also he was the subject of traditional media attention at a couple points. I also ask users like Tjic and Susan Nunes to provide reference to how Gilliard fails to meet the notability requirements. It is prima facie absurd. --FNV 02:00, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Tell me how he DOES. Rule of thumb for Wikipedia should be this: If a person is famous enough to merit inclusion in a LEGITIMATE, hard copy encyclopedia, he or she should be in Wikipedia. Face it: Very few people in this country even follow political blogs all that much, and very few people could even tell you who Steve Gilliard was. Granted he was a decent if arrogant writer and apparently a very nice person, but having a cultlike following by some fans--who only AFTER HIS DEATH decided to put him in here as some kind of tribute--does not mean he should be in here. Ten years from now, Gilliard won't even be mentioned in any discussions of blogs. So tell me, Gilliard fans, why did you never bother to include him in here when he was alive, if his notoriety merited inclusion?--Susan Nunes 5 June 2007
 * Funny, the New York Times saw his passing merited an Steve Gilliard article, and the Hillary Clinton Campaign sought fit to write about his passing on their official website as well. When the paper of record writes about the man, as does a former first lady who may well be elected the next President has their campaign website call him "one of the leading voices of the progressive blogoshpere" it seems to make this an open and shut case that this is more than a valid entry. Just because you have your personal axes to grind because he tore into some of your blog commenting without much mercy in no way makes it even close to a legitimate argument that Steve Gilliard doesn't merit an entry. Lestatdelc 05:19, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Easy: an ongoing personal web presence often mitigates the motivation to augment it. As for your rule of thumb, I'll wave in the general direction of Skeletor to show that the hard-copy metaphor simply doesn't translate cleanly. WP:NOTPAPER Btw, can you tell us who wins the Kentucky Derby in 2107, since you're claiming such prescience? Holgate 17:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

KEEP - Full disclosure: I am Jesse Wendel, a personal friend of Steve's, long-time commenter on the blog, and one of the core group whom kept The News Blog running during Gilly's illness both behind the scenes and through writing content for the front page of the blog. I apologize in advance if I misuse some of the Wiki markup symbols. I give permission for someone to fix those mistakes on my behalf. Other than a simple edit yesterday, this is my first time here, although there are other edits on other subjects I intend to make -- as evidenced by my having my username for months at least, not just for a day or so. In other words, I am not here single-purpose. Here are some facts: As this article on The News Blog states, in the month of February 2007, just days before Steve went into the hospital, he was the 22nd ranked progressive blogger. There is a clear A list, a clear B list, and then pretty much everyone else. Here are our internal numbers in February 2007 at the same time of the above article: we received 50,000 daily unique hits; multiply times 30 days and in 30 days we received 1.5 million daily unique hits. 50,000 daily unique readers is larger than many newspapers; 1.5 million monthly daily uniques is larger than the dead-tree edition of almost all national periodicals. Finally, the reason our community felt no need to put Steve Gilliard into Wikipedia while he was alive... Speaking only for myself, I was mildly amused that he wasn't yet included, but felt certain eventually, as with much else, y'all would get it right. This new media of blogging is, well, new. And people whom are wedded to fixed ideas and the main-stream-media way of doing things take time to see the impact of blogging on the world. I don't watch television news at all, for example. I get all of my news now from blogs and on-line sources (with the sole exception of traffic news, which comes on my Blackberry and the radio.) On-line is faster and frankly, more accurate. So to Susan and the others who question why we waited, well, we trusted that you would, in time, get it right. But now our friend is dead. So please. Get it right. Everyone from The New York Times to Daily Kos is mourning Gilly. He was the most prominent black blogger, and one of the most prominent bloggers of any race. The heart of the blogosphere is in mourning; yes, ten years from now people will still remember Steve Gilliard. *sighs* I'm going to almost completely or even completely bow out of this conversation -- as I understand your internal social constructs, you prefer for people whom are involved closely with a topic, not to work on the topic. So be it. But leaving my opinions aside, these are facts you are welcome to use. Best wishes and good luck. Bzengo 19:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

KEEP - Steve's obituary at this hour is coming off the presses of the New York Times, the newspaper of record in this country. It's time for those who wanted to delete this entry for one of the most influential bloggers alive and a pioneer of internet journalism to give up. Yes, Steve had a degree in journalism and was a full-time professional writer. 50,000 hits a day, 1.5 million unique hits a week. When Gilliard was ill there was a regular stream of death threats and ill-willed comments on his blog. Obviously he was "notable" even to his detractors. These people got their wish; why can't those who want to deny the reality of Gilliard's "notability" give up? Narus 03:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

KEEP - He made a difference, and a visible one, getting several mentions in the traditional media. There's essentially infinite space, so lets keep the entry. [[User:Smptq|Smptq] 03:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

KEEP Notable for all the above reasons, but a write-up in the New York Times, plus the Boston Globe dust-up meets the minimum notability standard for Wikipedia. Period. Added to Wikiproject Biography and Wikiproject Media. -- Yamara 04:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

KEEP - First of all, I do not believe that the notability standards are designed to be all inclusive. In other words, just because the word "blogger" is not in the list does not mean Wikipedia should ignore all bloggers. The irony is that Wikipedia, in a way, is a group blog. Yet some persist with the idea that "journalists" are people who are seen in newspapers, on radio, or on tv, and because of this are somehow worthy of inclusion, and "bloggers" are just some kind of hobbyists and are not worthy of inclusion. If that is true, then we need to remove a whole lot of people from Wikipedia. We can start by getting rid of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and any other lefty bloggers, and then we can take out the bloggers on the right like Michelle Malkin. To me, part of the strength of Wikipedia has always been its ability to go beyond what is done in traditional encyclopedias--that means more articles and more thought provoking content. Because I think this is such a strong part of Wikipedia, when in doubt I tend to think we should opt for inclusion rather than exclusion. It is the very inclusion of so many subjects that has made Wikipedia so successful.

An important question to ask is, "What is the criteria we use for journalists?" If someone writes a weekly column in The New York Times for 10 years, he of course will get in, but if someone has one article published one time in a town newspaper of 2,000 people, and the article is about how his cat had kittens, well, he may not deserve a slot. Gilliard, who wrote for years and is considered by many of the most popular political bloggers on the left to be a pioneer, has much more in common with the NY Times journalist than with the guy who wrote about his cats. The criteria should be impact, and Gilliard had that by the bushel.Sloumeau 04:40, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

KEEP This is a really small-minded attack that adds nothing to the integrity of Wikipedia. Gilliard was eulogized today in a substantial obituary by Noam Cohen in The New York Times, "Steven Gilliard Jr., 42, Dies; Founder of Liberal Political Blog". This is not the place to propose his removal. Wikipedia has a very well-defined procedure for deletion. If Ms. Nunes is so concerned about getting his article removed, perhaps she should figure out how to go about doing so in the correct manner. As far as I know, anything said here is is irrelevant. Jules Siegel 10:38, 6 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Jules, that was my first reaction, but as I read through the comments I concluded that the discussion would serve a useful purpose by deterring people from starting a hopeless Afd. (If anyone is bothering to tally the boldface responses to the hypothetical AfD, I'm a keep.)  As for Ms. Nunes, the English-language Wikipedia has one point something million more articles than Britannica,  so she can find plenty of other places to try to persuade the community to adopt her rule of thumb. JamesMLane t c 03:07, 7 June 2007 (UTC) Addendum: My mistake, there actually was an AfD, which has already been closed as a keep, based on clear consensus.  I've added the standard link to the prior AfD discussion at the top of this page.  Given that fact, Jules is correct that the discussion here is irrelevant. JamesMLane t c 04:50, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

KEEP Easy call here. The only arguments for deletion are thinly veiled personal attacks. The New York Times only does obits if you are notable. Also, the claim that one must be notable enough to be in a paper encyclopedia is patently absurd. Agreed, notability should be considered, but in Mr. Gilliard's case there is absolutely no question about that. - Quartermaster 15:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Enough already
Enough with beating that dead horse, time to work on this article to prove whether or not he was notable. I changed the cause of death/illness line to be shorter; the article lead should spend more time about the who and why; you can have a "Death" section later in the article. Let's keep the lead quick and to the point (WP:LEAD). Someone should throw a couple of cites up there for "controversial" and "influential"; those are opinions that should be referenced. I've been changing some presentation styles around; just my choices, if you disagree, change them back, its fine. Lipsticked Pig 22:03, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions

 * Change "Professional biography" to "Biography" and include his early life and education.
 * Crop the image of Gilliard on the right-hand side a bit Lipsticked Pig 05:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest splitting the biography section into three subs: early life, education, career; Netslaves; DKos/NewsBlog. Holgate 17:03, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Use non-expiring links to the NY Times. I keep putting them in place as I see them, but this is something people should know how to do. Dave Winer, the inventor of RSS, arranged with the Times for bloggers, and people who need non-expiring links to their data, to be able to create them. Simply take the original link and run it through the NY Times Link Generator and it will return a link which doesn't vanish behind the paywall. You may replace the section directly after partner= with your own organization, for example, partner=wikipedia. In this case, the correct url reads partner=thenewsblog, as the source url comes from Gilly's blog where, shortly, we will have the link up. Bzengo 00:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)