Talk:Suw Charman-Anderson

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Comment: One can find many more sources regarding "Suw Charman" than one does by searching exclusively on her fairly recent married name. betsythedevine (talk) 17:36, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

To discuss: user Mattl's suggestion that this article be merged with ORG article..."

 * Don't merge Bio may be stub-class but its subject is not. Well-known and widely-traveled writer and speaker. betsythedevine 17:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't merge The Bio's stubbyness is in part due to well-meaning, but information-removing edits by others. As Suw is a well-known blogger, and known for being a blogger, deleting links to her blogs is using the letter of wikipedia law against its spirit. 76.102.254.252 09:37, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't merge Well-known and active in the UK. --GlynWintle 09:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No Merge Does too many different things to fall into one of her projects.  --Buridan 22:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't merge Well-known and active in the UK, plus article no longer rates as a stub. --Imajes 23:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
 * since Mattl has not put forth a positive argument for the merge. I am removing the suggestion. --Buridan 23:13, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Self referenced resume
I have applied resume and references tags as a majority of the references are back to her own blogs or amazon, and therefore don't pass WP:REF. There appear to be enough Ghits to justify an article, but this is not presently written in a referenced enough manner to justify the article. Rgds, --Trident13 (talk) 10:47, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * contrarily, it is referenced plenty currently to justify an article, though it could have more references.--Buridan (talk) 13:37, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * How about speaker bios, for example this recent one from O'Reilly? I did a quick search in the Telegraph and came up with a lot of Suw Charman hits. betsythedevine (talk) 14:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Lack of notability
I have been prompted to defend my challenge of this person's notability.

Overall, Wikipedia appears to grossly overestimate the notability of people working in media and bloggers, i.e. people whose very profession it is to market themselves, leading to a proliferation of articles about said people. The notability here is not one that is general, and a comparable level of notability within a different field (e.g. academia) would not be considered worthy of a Wikipedia article. The mention on a single Top 50 list of a newspaper seems accidental and more likely the consequence of personal connections within the media business than the result of actual notability or accomplishment. I feel that this issue is compounded by the fact that said person is a woman, prompting victim defense reflexes from those with an agenda to further the careers of women in technology. There is nothing wrong with the latter, but it does not make the cheerleaders in that area notable outside their circle.

Therefore it is my opinion that this article, which is little more than a self-promoting resume and I would consider an embarrassment if it were written about myself, should be removed from Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.0.26 (talk) 23:25, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Putting the notability tag on an article is a request for additional sources of material -- those sources were supplied in response to your original tagging. If your intention is to secure the deletion of the article on the grounds that its subject is non-notable, that procedure is different -- see WP:AFD for information and help. My own opinion is that Suw's founding role in Britain's ORG and her initiation of Ada Lovelace Day are notable contributions. Your claim that the article "is little more than a self-promoting resume" is belied by the article history. Its contents were created by a variety of different people--the names that I recognize among major contributors all happen to be men. But their hypothetical motivation in working to improve the article is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the subject is notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. betsythedevine (talk) 03:05, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you for helpfully pointing out the proper procedures -- being new to Wikipedia I am not familiar with them yet. Brief research on social networks and IRC reveals that the majority of edits of this article are by personal acquaintances of the subject, a fact which supports my views on the nature of this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.26.0.26 (talk) 12:32, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well I don't know the subject of this article at all, yet have edited the article. Your comments sound a bit like sour grapes, and maybe even misogynistic to me. Your argument appears to be not only that Wikipedia should judge whether people are notable, but also whether they deserve to be notable. So what if someone's media connections cause them to be notable? It's the notability that gets them into Wikipedia. You may as well complain that a newsreader is only in Wikipedia because he's on TV. I also don't agree that people with a similar level of notability in other fields would not be included in Wikipedia. Academics are included, for example Ken Pounds, who is little known outside his field or university. If you think it's so easy for any old blogger to get into Wikipedia, and as you clearly have a chip on your shoulder about this, why not do so yourself to prove your point? Of course, that would mean having to come out from behind the mask of anonymity provided by yout IP address.  J Rawle  (Talk) 15:30, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Neither do I know the subject of this article personally. There are certainly no sour grapes involved but I am definitely sick of Wikipedia being clogged with vanity articles about minor members of the blogger caste. The judgement about whether a person should be included in an encyclopaedia can hardly be separated from whether said person deserves to have an article. The discussion about media connections was in reference to the single piece brought forward to support the subject's notability. A static IP address is hardly more anonymous than a registered username (I would argue it is less so).

Disputed PROD
Quoting the PROD tag: "You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to deletion for any reason." I do object to deletion of this article. The nominator has offered varied reasons for his ongoing attack on this article (tagging it 3 times for notability and now nominating it for deletion). Let me list just a few of the reasons offered: It seems to me that the question of whether the subject is or is not notable enough from an article should be separated from the nominator's other concerns -- 1) that it reads too much like a resume (valid point, for which the article already has a "like-resume" tag) and 2) Wikipedia unfairly favors bloggers and media people over deserving (for example) academics. Neither 1) nor 2) is a valid argument for deleting this article. The issue of whether or not the subject is notable has been discussed at length on this talk page. An earlier suggestion that it could be merged into the article for the Open Rights Group was "voted" down in 2007 with not one single supporter. Suw was a founder and first leader of ORG, a very influential British group whose meetings attract just about everybody active and interested in technology and human rights. Many influential figures like Cory Doctorow, Danny O'Brien, and Ben Laurie (or perhaps Wikipedia should delete all their biographies as well) were active participants in the group and worked with Suw there. People know her not because she was promoting herself but because she was working hard and productively on an important cause, one that has had remarkable influence and success since its inception. In fact, if Suw's business goal were promoting her own name in print, one would expect to see a proliferation of articles *about* Suw herself rather than what we do see, many many articles about the work she is doing and her relevant technical opinions. Suw's notability is attested by much more than one "single piece" (a Daily Telegraph naming her one of the 50 "most influential Britons in technology") but by many other reliable sources ALREADY cited in article references including the Guardian, the BBC, and The Register. betsythedevine (talk) 21:44, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
 * "It is proposed that this article be deleted because of the following concern: person is clearly not notable in the context of an encyclopaedia, apparently a self-promoting vanity article, major parts of content without reference and containing resume trivia about minor consulting projects and such"
 * "Overall, Wikipedia appears to grossly overestimate the notability of people working in media and bloggers, i.e. people whose very profession it is to market themselves, leading to a proliferation of articles about said people. The notability here is not one that is general, and a comparable level of notability within a different field (e.g. academia) would not be considered worthy of a Wikipedia article. ..."
 * " I am definitely sick of Wikipedia being clogged with vanity articles about minor members of the blogger caste. The judgement about whether a person should be included in an encyclopaedia can hardly be separated from whether said person deserves to have an article. The discussion about media connections was in reference to the single piece brought forward to support the subject's notability."

The reasons indicated above were given merely as indications that the article is pointless and unnecessary. Notability should be assessed independently by Wikipedia guidelines. While undoubtedly some bloggers have achieved notability by Wikipedia standards this subject is not one of them. Association with famous people itself rarely gives rise to independent notability and while ORG may or may not be a notable subject this does not make anyone involved in its genesis automatically noteworthy. I believe that the low number of comments on the merge request reflects lack of interest in the subject more than anything else. This bias should be taken into account when considering deletion requests. Representative comments from the Telegraph article supporting this view: The BBC and Register articles discuss events the subject was involved in, but not the subject herself is not the topic of these articles. As such, they are unsuitable for establishing personal notability.
 * "With some notable exceptions, this list reads like a review of the authors media friends - some of these people appear to hold marginal positions at least in the technology world, let alone being in a position to influence."
 * "As a web developer I say, Time Berners-Lee, YES, web-developers, however eminent, a resounding NO."
 * "Whilst I do not wish to defame many of the people on the list, these are certainly not (on the whole) the movers and shakers creating innovative products and services."
 * "This is ridiculous. It's a list for no reason other than to have a list. It's randomly generated. A group of people, one or two of whom might be in the top 50 most important and influential members in Britain's technology industry."

Per Wikipedia guidelines "a person is presumed to be notable if he or she has been the subject of published secondary source material which is reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject.". This is not the case.

Further criteria: "Any biography: The person has received a well-known and significant award or honor, or has been nominated for one several times. The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field." No significant award (see comments about the Telegraph list above).

Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Creative_professionals "The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by their peers or successors." -- few peers have even heard of the subject of this article. Further, "The person is known for originating a significant new concept, theory or technique." -- not the case.

As such, I am listing the article for deletion.
 * Responding to the above, I look forward to a more focused discussion of the subject's notability on the article's deletion page. betsythedevine (talk) 01:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I've removed the AfD as it violates Wikipedia polcy for deletion, to wit: "Anyone can make a nomination, though anonymous users can not complete the process without help from a logged-in user. The nomination, however, must be in good faith. Nominations that are clearly vandalism may be discarded. Anonymous users cannot complete the process, as they are technically prohibited from creating new pages." As all deletionist nominations are anonymou and lacking good faith, this qualifies as vandalism of the record of digital rights activism in the UK, and has clearly misogynist undertones Kevin Marks (talk) 08:59, 13 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that this AfD is based on some fundamental misapprehensions. Although there are some bloggers "whose very profession it is to market themselves," that is not Suw's profession. She is an expert on the use of social media by business, something she has been working on and promoting since way back when the only social media anybody knew about were blogs (a word that was still so unfamiliar it had to be defined every time it showed up in a newspaper article) and wikis. I remember when I first heard Suw preaching her gospel that social media would be useful to businesses, I had serious doubts. But now when my grocery store has a sign up asking me to follow it on Twitter, and I get email from Second Life asking me to become its fan on Facebook, and the Library of Congress is making its collections available via Flickr -- I see that Suw was long-sighted about the possibilities.
 * I myself don't like the taste of beer. But if I were to start rampaging around Wikipedia deleting articles about beer-makers and breweries because too much recognition is given to people who make foul-tasting stuff, and that their "notability" is promoted only by others who also like foul-tasting stuff, I would be wrong. As a person who dislikes beer, I have no intelligent insight into which breweries are notable and which are not.
 * Suw is a blogger and a consultant on social software, but her "notability" derives from political activism -- not only in the field of digital rights but also in promoting the success of women in technology, a cause the AfD nominator identifies with "victim defense reflexes from those with an agenda."
 * I would just like to add that throughout this process not one single logged-in user, other than the anonymous account newly created for the purpose of filing an AfD, has agreed with "JwRandom"'s belief that Suw Charman-Anderson fails to meet Wikipedia's standard for notability. I really am amazed that "JwRandom" has devoted so much time and effort to this process starting with a first anonymous tagging of the article for "Notability" in mid-March. . Another amusing edit during this time frame:.
 * I am grateful to Kevin Marks for bringing this strange process to a close. betsythedevine (talk) 14:16, 13 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Both Betsy and Kevin demonstrably have a personal relation to the subject, therefore while their input on process is appreciated comments about the subject's notability cannot be taken seriously due to manifest bias. I maintain that objectively this subject does not meet the bar set for notability on Wikipedia. The time put into this will yield value on subsequent deletion requests which I expect to go through more smoothly when their justification is readily apparent to a neutral bystander. I could equally ask why you would put so much time and effort into creating an article about a non-notable subject. (Yet another unsigned comment from "JWRandom")
 * Although I believe that Kevin Marks was correct in dismissing your AfD, I am waiting for an Admin or some other neutral person to step in and conclude this process. betsythedevine (talk) 03:20, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

The AfD has now come to an orderly conclusion. The consensus -- the unanimous agreement of everyone other than the nominator -- is that Suw Charman-Anderson meets the Wikipedia criteria for notability. The resume-like quality of the earlier version of this bio was due not to "vanity" or "self-promotion" on Suw's part but to an earlier version having been garnered from an online resume by a not-Suw Wikipedian in search of material. betsythedevine (talk) 17:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)