Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arthur T. Murray


 * 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. Jaranda wat's sup 21:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Arthur T. Murray

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Net.kook of questionable notability. His articles (Arthur T. Murray, Mentifex, AI4U, and Mind-1.1) have been deleted before, though this was in 2003 or 2004, and the deletion logs go back only to December 2004.

Last I checked, there are no independent published sources about Murray himself. There is one independent published source on his computer program, but it was an informal review by a medical doctor (not a computer scientist) in a non–peer-reviewed SIGPLAN newsletter. I think Murray might have won the [news:alt.usenet.kooks alt.usenet.kooks] Kook of the Year Award, but I'm not sure if that can be counted as a reliable source. —Psychonaut 11:24, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep: If I understand correctly, the main reason the prior articles were deleted was because Mentifex himself kept on vandalizing them, and it wasn't worth the effort to keep them clean despite their noteworthiness. In fact, I think I may have had this exact discussion with Psychonaut several years ago. I'd argue that Murray/Mentifex is quite noteworthy, with 18,800 google hits for "Mentifex." He's also potentially the longest-lasting kook, as he's been around since at least 1985. He's at least about as noteworthy as Gene Ray. --NeuronExMachina 00:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * strong delete per Biographies of Living Persons- (sorry I'm not good at linking to those pages.) This article calls him a 'crank' -not a Neutral Point of View really and not enough sources to make an NPOV article either.  Seems mean to have an article which contains nothing but slagging off a private individual (I'd not heard of him before by the way.)Merkinsmum 12:51, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete I'm not seeing any third parties off Usenet discussing him, and the WP:BLP problem is troublesome (but fixable - but is it worth it?). -- Charlene 13:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, his main claim to fame seems to be annoying other people with repeated off-topic newsgroup posts of highly dubious scientific validity. If that's not permitted under WP:BLP, then the article will contain little or nothing at all of note about the man. —Psychonaut 14:06, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think that is how he or what supporters he may have would explain what he is doing, nor are they likely to call him a 'crank' and without consideration of other views of his actions than 'annoying' it's not NPOV so should be included without NPOVing or also including his own view of his actions. A lot of borderline noteable BLP issues consisting or frequent or primarily criticism are being deleted at the mo, such as the article on Seth Finkelstein. I think this current trend is a kind of censorship, but none the less it's the precedent at the mo.Merkinsmum 15:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete Even the "official site" is nothing but an user account on an ISP. Google hits is not reason for keep (numerous non-notable but frequent Usenet contributors who often participate in Usenet flame-wars show up highly in Google hits as a result).  I don't think frequent Usenet participation constitutes a claim to fame.  Tendancer 00:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Ugh, I give up. I maintain that Mentifex is pretty legendary in the artificial intelligence online community for more than 20 years now, but I admit that he's somewhat of an unknown outside that community. It looks like this will probably be deleted, and I won't attempt to recreate it. However, if in the future somebody else sees this and thinks they can do a better job than me of justifying the article, I heartily encourage them to do so -- Mentifex is a noteworthy piece of Internet history. --NeuronExMachina 20:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sollog and Archimedes Plutonium are net.kooks who have become noteworthy pieces of Internet history. While he's almost as vocal, Mentifex hasn't yet been covered in enough published sources to earn this rather dubious accolade.  Don't take it personally, NeuronExMachina. :) —Psychonaut 21:52, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh! I actually wasn't aware of the Notable Usenet personalities page which Archimedes Plutonium redirects to. I actually think that might be a good place to have the Mentifex/Murray articles redirect to. Do you think Mentifex might be notable enough to put on that page? --NeuronExMachina 22:29, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Moot The Mentifex home page is now a mock-up Wikipedia article. -ATM/Mentifex


 * 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.