Wikiquote:Votes for deletion archive/Peter Stibrany


 * 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. —LrdChaos (talk) 16:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Peter Stibrany
Not notable enough for inclusion in Wikiquote. There aren't many (~1400) Google results for the name (of which, a very large amount are mailing list archives), and there's no corresponding Wikipedia page. The sole quote present is "sourced" as the USENET signature of someone else (with attribution to this person). —LrdChaos (talk) 14:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Vote closed. Result: delete (five votes to delete, no dissent). —LrdChaos (talk) 16:22, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. —LrdChaos (talk) 14:41, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete -- should this not be subject to a speedy delete? ~ UDScott 15:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think that this qualifies for speedy deletion; the page claims that the person "was the project manager for the development of the MOST microsatellite mission from 1998 through 2000", which isn't prima facie unnotable. —LrdChaos (talk) 16:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete; LrdChaos is right that it isn't a speedy candidate because it does claim notability. I would say that the sourcing is inadequate and a search for the quote fails to turn up anything better. Perhaps the quote could be added to the subject page on Success with a note that it was apocryphal. Peter Stribrany doesn't seem to have said anything else of any more general note. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 09:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete unless better evidence of notability provided and some reasonable hope of more than a single quote exists. This appears to be someone whose sole notability is a clever variation on a common quote. The source is secondhand through Usenet, which itself isn't a reliable source for anything other than the existence (not content accuracy) of posts. If a reliable source can be found for the quote, implying it has some notability itself, it might logically go into Success and/or Failure. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 17:30, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment: Our draft policy makes it clear that a Usenet article is a legitimate source for its own text. What makes this source problematic is not that it is a Usenet article (particularly given the reputation of the poster), but rather, that it (1) is not reliably associated with the subject (indeed, it is reliably associated with Henry Spencer) and (2) does not include[] an appropriate citation (the quotation is merely attributed).  121a0012 19:28, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * The only verifiable information we have on the quote so far is that it was added by User:K.a.carroll. The source line claims this quote was in Usenet archivist Henry Spencer's Usenet signature from an unidentified set of sci.space.* posts sometime in 2000-2001. This is atrociously inadequate sourcing. First, I challenge someone to come up with a single such post. That would be the very first step to trying to use this as a proper source. (I tried searching for "success can get expensive" in Google Groups — a Usenet instance that has greater reason than most to retain Spencer's posts — and got zilch, so the claim itself isn't supported by evidence.) Second, even if we had one of these posts, we have no way to know that a poster claiming to be Spencer is indeed the famous one. Usenet does not vet the identity of any poster. We need to ensure that our draft Sourcing policy draws a clear line between the existence of a Usenet post and the information content, including the implications of its "from" line. Usenet has no editorial oversight, a key element to reliable sourcing. The only reason we can cite Usenet at all is because it has a well-established means to accurately copy whatever is posted to all its client machines. Thus, we can cite a post as evidence that such a post exists, but it's not clear to me how we can make any further claims, even if they seem reasonable. Remember that the Wikimedia philosophy of sourcing is "verifiability, not truth", the latter of which we editors are not supposed to be judging. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:05, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * It took me less than a minute to find the oldest article Google knows about for this quotation. (Which I had done, by the way, before posting my previous comment.)  As to your second point: a document—any document—is prima facie evidence of its text.  It says what it says, and in Wikiquote that is what we are concerned with: no dispute is possible.  The only verifiability issue with a Usenet article for us (assuming it is available in a public archive like Google Groups) is the same as for any other text: can we reliably associate the alleged source with the text?  In this case, we can get part of the way, given Henry Spencer's long posting history, but that may not always be true.  (A Usenet article claiming to be from a well-known person who has not posted before or since is likely to be a forgery.)  The sourcing problem still remains, however, since Spencer's signature is not a reliable source of someone else's words.    121a0012 03:05, 5 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. 121a0012 19:54, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Further comment: I spent some time checking publication databases for this fellow, and could only come up with two journal articles, neither of which is the document to which this quote is sourced. It is clear, however, that the identity of the author is well established; having done so, I think it's fairly easy to conclude that he is not sufficiently notable, so my vote to delete stands.  121a0012 03:45, 5 November 2006 (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.