Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Charnow


 * 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. Randykitty (talk) 13:06, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

David Charnow

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Biography of a person whose claim of notability as a moderator and creator of early computer bulletin board forums is not reliably sourced. Two of the four footnotes here definitively fail to mention his name at all, serving only to tangentially verify stray facts about the forums, while a third wants me to pay $51 for the privilege of reading it to verify whether it actually addresses him as a person or not. And the only other source here is a short biographical blurb in the finding aid to an archival collection of printouts of posts to the forum he organized, which means even that collection isn't really about him to any non-trivial degree either. These sources would quite honestly be stronger support for WP:CORP articles about the bulletin boards than they are for a biographical article about him as a person. Bearcat (talk) 17:47, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and lack of sources or links which establish notability. JC7V (talk) 18:01, 6 December 2018 (UTC)

Hi -- I'm not 100% sure on the fomratting of how to post this comment/vote & so I appreciate your patience. I've been doing work in the ONE archives, which holds the finding aid you reference. The collections there are are about him -- to a substantial degree. In additional to biographical information about Charnow, there are printouts from the BBS which include: stories about his diagnosis, the people he helped as an AIDS activist, and interviews he conducted with doctors and physicians which he made available on the BBS. The BBS was one of the first of its kind to spread awareness about AIDS and seems to be the only one archived with primary source material. If you request the information from the archives, it's readily available. What would be the best protocol here? Surely his work is notable, if sticky to acquire. This seems to be the case with underground early internet movements, and is compounded by the urgency of the AIDS crisis. I have photographs and scans from his work in the archives which I can make available here. The protocol for original research made this murky. Kbbrewster (talk) 18:24, 6 December 2018 (UTC)
 * His ability to qualify for a Wikipedia article will depend on the extent to which you can show that he (not just the BBS, but him as a person) has been the subject of coverage in media. It can't be supported by his own personal papers, or by the ability to verify stray facts about the BBS — people have to have done journalism about him before he's notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. These aren't all completely worthless sources, but like I said they make a more compelling case for an article about the BBS itself, in which he could certainly have his name mentioned, than they do for a biography of him as an individual. Bearcat (talk) 18:59, 6 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete based on the references, the Backroom BBS might be notable, but this person is not. power~enwiki ( π, ν ) 19:12, 7 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Health and fitness-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:48, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:48, 9 December 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 00:48, 9 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Delete - No sign of notority. Sources provided are not very solid SaraLiX5 (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2018 (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.