Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Erik Selberg


 * 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. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:12, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Erik Selberg

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Lacks reliable independent secondary sources to establish notability as required by WP:GNG and fails to state a reason the subject would be notable in lieu of sources under WP:ANYBIO. The one source offered is from MetaCrawler, which is not independent and offers only a one-sentence mention of the subject. By Googling, I did find a Seattle Times blog entry remarking on the subject's blog but I think that falls short of what our guidelines ask. Everything else I could find appeared to be WP:PRIMARY. Though not a reason to delete, I note in addition that the subject appears to have created the article himself, a practice we discourage per WP:AUTO and WP:NOTHERE. Msnicki (talk) 03:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Msnicki (talk) 16:34, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Msnicki (talk) 16:38, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Msnicki (talk) 16:44, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 21:36, 15 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Interesting case. There are plenty of primary sources that could be used to build up a decent article, either as external links or notes: his work on the  Mathematics Genealogy Project, his doctoral dissertation, an interview on a blog, his paper on Metacrawler, and his patents. I found at least one book that mentions him, and what appears to be his political work. Bearian (talk) 20:43, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


 * There are indeed several WP:PRIMARY sources. But none of these can be used to establish notability, which is all we care about at AfD.   His PhD does not confer notability per WP:DEGREE nor does the fact he wrote a thesis; that's something all PhDs have to do.  If his works were widely cited, that might be offered as evidence for a presumption of notability under WP:CREATIVE, but in fact his works have not been particularly widely cited.  His most cited paper on MetaCrawler received 396 citations; the subject's co-author and advisor, by contrast, has 13 papers that got more citations, 3 of them receiving over 1000 citations.  The subject's thesis received just 73 citations.  The only other paper for which the subject was the sole author received just 10 citations.  These are not compelling numbers on which to base a claim of presumed notability under WP:CREATIVE.  The subject does have 7 patents but this is not a remarkable number for any developer at a firm like Microsoft or Amazon with an aggressive IP policy.  More to the point, from WP:PATENTS, "Patent applications and issued patents must be treated as self-published, non-independent, primary sources for Wikipedia purposes."  His patents do not establish notability.  The remaining sources are equally unhelpful.  Msnicki (talk) 22:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Weak Delete The Google books search may indicate that he meets Wikipedia:Notability (academics), particularly number 7: The person has made substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity. He is mentioned in a great many books, but not substantially. So is there an impact or not? Walter Görlitz (talk) 15:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete. Doesn't meet GNG and basically notable just for one thing. A redirect will do. Someone not using his real name (talk) 19:38, 21 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, a redirect to MetaCrawler seems very appropriate. Msnicki (talk) 19:43, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If he's notable, even for just one thing, then he meets GNG. Sancho 17:38, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * No, you're confusing "notable" in the common sense of the word and wiki/GNG-notable, which means significant coverage about him personally rather than noted (in passing) for having done something notable. We do have guidelines like WP:BIO1E and WP:PSEUDO that in fact suggest not writing this kind of article when the subject has not received coverage focused on him. The federatedsearchblog.com interview for example only asked him about MetaCrawler, so it's not really helpful in fleshing out a biography. Someone not using his real name (talk) 00:15, 24 December 2013 (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.