Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Founder of the Bulletin Board System


 * 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 of the debate was rename (no redirect) Jtkiefer T  23:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Founder of the Bulletin Board System
Article does not follow naming conventions. Mr. Shannon's claim to be the founder of the BBS is contradicted by reality, but that claim can be covered in the BBS article if necessary. Delete. --Stephen Gilbert 14:03, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Per nom. Merge into Bulletin board system if feeling especially generous. --StuffOfInterest 14:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * ALTER --Somehow I knew this would happen. In my opinion Ward was first, Steve Punter second, however the systems they wrote for were highly price and not bought by the general public. Wards system worked for only a handful of people in his general area who had access via hobby. Electric Magazine was the first written for the Commodore Vic 20. The Vic 20 was considered to be a game machine and not a serious business manchine. The Commodore Vic 20 and C64 were the first affordable personal computers. As to Steve Punter...he had a system which was not really a bulletin board for the PET 32. My program predated his BBS for the newer and personal Commodore systems. I am open to an alteration and suggest words more appropriate. Bob Shannon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.178.55.63 (talk • contribs) 2005-12-01 17:15:15 UTC
 * It seems highly likely that 216.178.55.63 is also, from the above comment. Mr Shannon, Wikipedia is not in the business of taking people's word for what they say about themselves.  Neither is it in the business of forking articles over content disputes, such as the one that you are having at bulletin board system.  If you wish this information to be included in Wikipedia, please do what every single edit form here has told you to do, and cite sources independent of yourself that can be used to verify the addition that you are trying to make to bulletin board system. Uncle G 18:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete - in addition to being simply wrong (which is fixable), the subject is not notable, and the article is poorly named. Nandesuka 18:51, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * The article is a fork over a content dispute. The content dispute should be settled, by editors citing sources, in the original article. Delete. Uncle G 18:57, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * INDIFFERENT. Hi, Mr. Shannon. This is Jason Scott, who did that documentary on dial-up bulletin-board systems. While I appreciate (more than most) that you have a long and respectful history with both bulletin board systems and the early personal computer revolution, I think you're going to encounter a lot of pushback and dispute calling yourself the "founder" of anything related to them. When you find yourself having to resort to semantics or trivialities (something being "too expensive" is not a reason for it not to be considered a precedent, something lacking features you later added does not make it an example of a BBS), then you're going to find that this environment, which depends utterly on semantics and trivialities, will not be welcoming. I offer you respect for your efforts at the dawn of widescale personal computing, but can't endorse your modifying history to aggrandize. --Jscott 19:32, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * OK Agreed to Delete. Thanks for at least some good woods Jason but I have to agree with you that getting into a semantics debate is not a cool idea. I'll just let the thing go. I'm too old to debate such things. This was the notion of a friend who worded it for me and I posted it. I see it as true but I don't want to sound like Bill Clinton defining the words. It does make me feel a bit sad however. Ah well life is that way to some of us retired folk.
 * Well, just so we're clear... Communitree BBS is from 1979, and ran on an Apple II, which is one of the first personal computers. (You can browse the circa-1982 commercial version's manual at http://www.flyingsnail.com/missingbbs/CommuniTree.html). RBBS, which was created around 1978-1979 and implemented Ward's CBBS program, ran on both inexpensive CP/M compatible machines and later IBM PCs. (I have photos of a circa 1980 CP/M machine running a modified CBBS with notations going back a year or two by different programmers who were adding features, including both messages and file sections). Also pre-dating you by a few months are Citadel-based BBS programs, which Taren ran on a variety of computers, including the Ohio Scientific and similar brands. It's not really a debate, per se, whether you are a founder. It is a debate, and one I think you could win, that in the beginning of the story of personal computers, you were one of the guys working right there in the trenches to spread the word on these marvels. I would suggest focusing on that. --66.92.84.190 20:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * RENAME to Bob Shannon - he is notable. This is the wrong title to talk about someone who claims to be the founder. Zordrac 23:38, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
 * OK to RENAME to Bob Shannon....I had my son alter the wording. Now we are open to renaming instead of deletion.
 * For some detailed background and analysis of the claims, Jason Scott (creator of the magnum opus, the BBS Documentary): ASCII. &mdash; 83.227.238.221 07:49, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * OK...This here is Bob in the flesh...or in the binary...whatever... I am at the present time, sending Jason every citation I have or can find. It may take a while but my wife and I will dig it all up. We still have a large bag of memories...and I will not be ground into dust on this. My wife, I, several personal friends and some purchasers of Electric Magazine have good memories and we will make sure to put this matter to a rest one way or another.--Bob Shannon also EQSHannnon...which is me...thanks for pointing that out..and my IP is quite correct.
 * Rename to Bob Shannon - the information is of some historical importance, but shouldn't remain under its current name. Timsheridan 13:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
 * I will agree to Rename to Bob Shannon as per the few who suggested, however at this time I am still in the process of sending Jason Scott  my citations and he is responding. I believe that Jason, being a notable historian will be able to do this better then my friends have done.  I appreciate the more neutral tone that some have taken. I might note that there is another notable Bob Shannon who is a long time network DJ in NYC, This NY Bob owns bobshannon.com and he can be seaarched under that URL heading, while I have owned bobshannon.org for some time now. I mention this because at one point, Mr Shannon of New York might wish to be included in some way, shape or form under the suggested Bob Shannon name.-Sincerely Bob Shannon-Malo WA
 * Unusual Alterations --Bob Once more here. I find it interesting that someone from Wenatchee and also from my ISP altered the present edition..and then another person from Virginia altered it to read I live in a shack. This ends up making me look more like the Uni-bomber in isolation. While we do live in relative wilderness territory, we have stores and neighbors close by. Our home was built 25 years ago and is a 3 bedroom octagon, NOT a shack. I have asked Jason Scott to rewrite the whole thing for me and do it justice. It would be appreciated if others ceased making obscure alterations. - Bob Shannon Dec 6, 2005 1:45 PCT


 * 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.