Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Greg Street


 * 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   keep. Cirt (talk) 01:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Greg Street

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Denied prod from a bit ago.

I could not find third party reliable sources which go into depth on Greg Street. I.e., I believe he fails the standard of inclusion in Wikipedia, notability. Izno (talk) 01:58, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Snow Keep - He's the systems design lead on the biggest top-shelf MMO in the Western market; he's pretty much as important in the field of MMO design as it's possible to get. He meets WP:CREATIVE criteria 1, 3 and 4 (no small achievement!) and should be kept.  Which leaves the issue of sources.  There are plenty of reliable sources; I think your issue may be that many of them are largely dedicated to coverage of WoW (which is exactly where you'd expect to find mention of him), such as here and here.  But looking further afield, there's coverage at Gaming Shogun, azzor.com, Metro.co.uk, play.tm, and Kotaku.  Also a huge amount of coverage on reliable, dedicated news sites like wowinsider.com.  - DustFormsWords (talk) 04:14, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That's the exact problem though, as there's nothing that's solely about him. Everything's about WoW... On a side note, wow.com=wowinsider.com --Izno (talk) 17:54, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of video game related deletion discussions. MrKIA11 (talk) 14:52, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that's of itself a problem. You don't find much coverage of Harper Lee that doesn't discuss her in the context of her sole creative work, To Kill A Mockingbird, but the impact and significance of that work in its field is of such high magnitude that there is no question that Lee herself gets an article.  I'd argue that's the case here; WoW is so central to any contemporary discussion of MMOs and their design (and likely to be of continuing historical significance) that individual articles on its lead designers are merited. - DustFormsWords (talk) 22:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * The distinction to make is that most news about Greg Street is about how Ghostcrawler said this or that on the boards. It pertains to the game and not him or his role at the company.  I wonder if any essays exist out there that examine his job as a bridge between the company and the playerbase.  When it comes to class balance issues, he's pretty much it.  Or at least, he's the one that forum whiners always clamor for, and is blamed for when things go wrong.  The articles you linked to about either the games or about class changes, not about him. --gakon5 (talk) 23:22, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, as I understand it, you're claiming that we wouldn't have an article on a newsreader just because the news they read is notable, and that the same situation applies here. But I don't think that's a good analogy; this "newsreader" is directly involved in the creation of the "news" they're reading.  Ghostcrawler talking about WoW is exactly what we'd expect, seeing as Ghostcrawler is one of those responsible for creating and maintaining WoW; it's the same sort of situation as where you'd see coverage of a CEO focused on him talking about his company, or the author of a book talking about their writing.  Coverage OUTSIDE that context could really rise no higher than personal gossip.  To put it another way - is anyone arguing this man DOESN'T have a major role in setting the course for the highest-profile Western MMO in history?  Is anyone arguing that in the field of MMO design, decisions made by Greg Street AREN'T considered noteworthy by his peers? - DustFormsWords (talk) 23:29, 11 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hey, I'd like him to have an article too. I don't argue his importance to this game, as a former WoW-player and message board-frequenter.  Most news items about him regard his own reporting on class changes, and most interviews with him regard details on games (like the announcements of Wrath/Cataclysm).  Those don't tell you anything about him.  Here's a useable interview:  Greg talks a bit about his past working on Age of Empires III, and his roles in the company.  Even then, this is him talking about himself, and more about WotLK anyway; another source is needed to show that he is relevant to WoW.  I'm sure WoW.com has written an editorial or two about him.
 * All that being said, I will say Keep, but more things need to be dug up on him as a person. --gakon5 (talk) 01:57, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * After digging through a year or so's worth of posts marked "Ghostcrawler" or "Greg Street" on WoW.com, I found the following which may be useful for the article:
 * About his work with Ensemble:
 * About his role at Blizzard:
 * About his hiatus from posting:
 * His post on the WoW forums specifically points out that he is a developer, but takes a lot more time than other devs do to post on the boards and "engage the community directly", in his own words. --gakon5 (talk) 02:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm in the process of expanding this article right now. --gakon5 (talk) 20:01, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That is an amazing improvement. Fantastic work, Gakon5! - DustFormsWords (talk) 20:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'd add a picture, but I want to make sure the article isn't deleted first.  And can we dig up some birth info or his full name or something for the infobox? --gakon5 (talk) 21:03, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Open source picture here when you're ready for it. His middle initial appears to be T (link).  Also, an interview with him from his time at Ensemble is here and also here although he doesn't give much personal info except that he used to be a marine biologist. - DustFormsWords (talk) 22:07, 12 October 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what I was going to use, but I don't know that it's open source. Apparently the image comes from this page on the Blizzard website, but it's been spread all over the internet.  I'd call it Fair Use. (edit: Surely free photos exist of this guy.) --gakon5 (talk) 22:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep But I don't think the linked-in is an appropriate cite. It fails both Reliable sources and Verifiability.--Blargh29 (talk) 22:38, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep after much thought... Whilst I agree that there do seem to be a lack of sources about his non-World of Warcraft activities, he passes the requirements for notability as stated above. There is no harm in having a stub of a notable topic if that is all there is to the topic... --Taelus (talk) 17:44, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  —Taelus (talk) 17:47, 8 October 2009 (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.