Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mark Jason Dominus (4th nomination)


 * 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 redirect to Higher-Order Perl. Discounting the subject's own views per WP:COI, we have only one "weak keep" and a "keep or merge" on the keep side, plus a "redirect" and four "delete" opinions on the other. A redirect probably accommodates most views as it allows selective merging to the book article, subject to consensus among non-COI editors.  Sandstein  09:22, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Mark Jason Dominus
AfDs for this article: 
 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Article written by the subject of the article (and heavily edited by them). Subject has marginal notability, all of it stemming from a book he authored and self published sources. Google hits are not an indicator since the subject of the article has done his homework on generating link engine spam. COI edits throughout, and reads like a book advertisement. Article should be deleted or merged and redirected to Higher-Order Perl. Questionable sources. Octoberwoodland (talk) 23:35, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2016 October 7.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 00:18, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Authors-related deletion discussions. North America1000 08:28, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. North America1000 08:28, 7 October 2016 (UTC)


 * May in fact be notable, though this article isn't good. If not kept, redirect to Higher-Order Perl, which is actually noteworthy in the field - David Gerard (talk) 10:18, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment I am the subject of the article, which has survived three previous deletion discussions with strong consensus for “keep”.  The proposal to delete claims that I wrote the article and edited it heavily; both of these claims are easily seen to be false.   Wikipedia's policy on notability of authors says “The person has created … a significant or well-known work. Such work must have been the primary subject …  of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.”  Higher-Order Perl  meets this standard.  —Mark Dominus (talk) 14:13, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That aside, the subject may well qualify as noteworthy and the article one to keep. May be a fixer-upper rather than a delete. And COI doesn't mean you can't touch the article about yourself, it means that you shouldn't beyond minor details (a can vs should issue). I mean, Dominus should definitely avoid editing the article, but it's incorrect to say it's forbidden - David Gerard (talk) 00:57, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * This is a very constructive and helpful suggestion. It's current sources are not secondary sources, and it still seems to make the most sense to redirect the bio to the article with the book because there is no context for his bio and the content does not meet standards as you pointed out earlier. Octoberwoodland (talk) 04:24, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * David Gerard: I think a review of my edits to the article will show that I have only edited it to make the most minor changes.  For example, this is my most recent edit, in March.  But if there is a concern about my edits to the article, this is not the correct forum for dealing with them.  The procedure at Conflict_of_interest should be followed.  —Mark Dominus (talk) 17:50, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The discussion is now about the notability of Mark Dominus. COI, if it exists, is a distraction. Agricola44 (talk) 03:47, 10 October 2016 (UTC).


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Technology-related deletion discussions. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ (talk) 17:55, 9 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Weak Keep passes WP:GNG and WP:BASIC, although it would be best if someone else sort of rewrote the article, it is extremely poorly written. I would stay stick to coding, Mark. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JohnTombs48 (talk • contribs) 18:29, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Delete computer programming language figure who lacks coverage to pass GNG. The inclusion criteria back in 2005 were a lot more lenient than they are today, which is why Wikipedia is plagued by thousands of articles on non-notable people.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:31, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Comment The nominator seems to be a single purpose account, per WP:SPA, and has made few or no edits unrelated to this particular AfD nomination. Starting an AfD with their third edit to WP (after user page and user talk page creation) is not typical behavior for a new user. --Mark viking (talk) 20:29, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I edit all the time with my IP address, but you have to have an account to list an Afd. Have someone change Wikimedia to allow IP editors to create Afd without an account.  At any rate, there is nothing sinister about it. Octoberwoodland (talk) 20:40, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * If you don't want to be seen as an SPA attack account, then not attacking would probably be a good start - David Gerard (talk) 23:11, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The discussion is now about the notability of Mark Dominus. Motivations of nom are a distraction. Agricola44 (talk) 03:47, 10 October 2016 (UTC).
 * I see no justification at all for the accusation of attacking, unless you mean the very mild incivility of "vanity article", which would be best stricken. 86.17.222.157 (talk) 18:23, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * In defense of David's assertion, there were, at the time David wrote that, a couple of passages by Octoberwoodland that could be considered more aggressive. But to Octoberwoodland's credit, they subsequently deleted those passages. At this point, I am content to assume good faith regarding Octoberwoodland's intentions and put the SPA concern to rest. --Mark viking (talk) 20:07, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Again, it's a little distracting to be debating something other than the subject of this debate. Agricola44 (talk) 20:15, 10 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. Some basic searching shows lots of web presence (twitter, personal sites, YouTubes, etc), but nothing that would clinch GNG in terms of archival sources. Indeed, the bibliography seems mostly to be web stuff, biosketches, conference presentations (broken link), etc. Awards, like the "Larry Wall Award for Practical Utility" are not notable. As far as I can tell, Mr. Dominus is a peripheral actor within the larger Perl world, rather than a notable computer scientist or language developer per se. The main claim for the article seems to be his book Higher-Order Perl. Most languages have their "Bibles" (like Kernighan and Ritchie for "C"), but Higher-Order Perl does not seem to be one of these for Perl. Noticed nom's mention of redirecting, but the book's notability seems debatable. I think JPL's above assessment is correct: this is a legacy article from the early days of WP when notability considerations were much lower than they are now. Agricola44 (talk) 16:59, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge selectively to Higher-Order Perl. MJD's main claim to notability is as the author of Higher order Perl and as a columnist of The Perl Journal. He was a prominent although not central figure in the Perl world. Based on the book, he seems to meet notability per WP:AUTHOR, but reasonable people could disagree on this. What is clear is that there is basic verifiable information out there on the man, and per our WP policies of WP:PRESERVE and WP:ATD, it is preferable to preserve verifiable information rather than delete it. Hence if consensus does not develop for keeping the article, merging basic facts relevant to the HOP article, his most notable achievement, would be the best policy-based course of action. --Mark viking (talk) 20:57, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Merging to HOP would be fine, unless that article would be at risk too. From what I can tell, Programming Perl is the "Bible" here. Presuming that Perl is like other modern languages in that there are dozens, or probably hundreds of dedicated mass-market books and technical texts, it's not clear to me that HOP itself is even notable. FWIW, I don't think being a columnist at The Perl Journal carries any notability weight. As far as I can tell, that seems to have been a short-lived trade publication/newsletter that went defunct about 15 years ago (all 19 issues seem to be here). I wonder if the following would be better. The main article on Perl is certainly permanent. Many of the people in the "perl box" listed at the bottom of this article are mentioned prominently or cited in that article. Dominus is not (though the HOP book is post-scripted as "further reading"). Perhaps this content should be redirected there, which would certainly satisfy ATD and PRESERVE. Agricola44 (talk) 22:10, 10 October 2016 (UTC).
 * A book doesn't need to be a "bible" to be notable; it just needs to satisfy the notability thresholds of WP:GNG or WP:NBOOK. HOP seems to do that, although folks are welcome to to bring it to AfD if they disagree. The Perl Journal was the main and dominant journal in the Perl world at the time, and being a columnist for the journal definitely contributed to the notability of MJD in the field, if not WP. At any rate, I think we should get not distracted by what-if scenarios and just concentrate on the article at hand. If keep does not become the consensus, a merge or redirect to the Perl article would be OK by me. But from what I have seen of the biographical sources for MJD, every one of them mentions HOP. A merge or redirect to Higher-Order Perl would seem a better fit and it would be easier to manage due weight in the merge. --Mark viking (talk) 23:57, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * HOP probably satisfies WP:NBOOK, though I'm not sure. The point is that, if it were of "Bible status", it might render Dominus himself notable per se. It's not, so it doesn't. In digging a little further, I think it's fair to say he was a very visible advocate/promoter/teacher of Perl and he contributed some important modules, but AUTHOR (probably the best guideline match) would require him to be "regarded as an important figure", which he is not, or for HOP to be "a significant or well-known work", which it is not. BTW: The Perl Journal was not a peer-reviewed archival journal. It was a newsletter/trade-periodical that published a whole 19 issues. I think we're trouble if we feel that being a columnist for this caliber of publication renders notability. Agricola44 (talk) 02:45, 11 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Delete. If this discussion had been about a person whose only claim to fame was to have written a minor book about a pretty minor tool used in any other industry then the article would have been laughed out of court. Why do we persist in applying different standards to some topics, such as the software industry, than we do to other topics? Isn't it time for Wikipedia to grow up from its geeky past and take a broader view of what is notable in an encyclopedia about the whole world? 86.17.222.157 (talk) 21:24, 11 October 2016 (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.