Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ed Pegg, Jr.

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. — CharlotteWebb 00:09, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ed Pegg, Jr.

This article got created on Jan 25, 2007 by Pleasantville. It was speedy deleted in a day or two by SlimVirgin per A7 (not-notability). Prompted by Pleasantville herself, and also by KSmrq, I restored it to have it go through the usual AfD process. Here are the arguments by these two people I have seen. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(from Talk:Ed Pegg, Jr.)

... Wikipedia cites the guy twelve times or so (I made some links but his name was tehre already.) That's why I made him an entry. He's notable enough for you to use his work and cite him freqently, but not notable enough to have an entry? .... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pleasantville (talk • contribs) 2007-01-26 03:37:57 utc (UTC)

(from User talk:Oleg Alexandrov)

I haven't seen the articles, but I'm slightly familiar with the name of an Ed Pegg, Jr., who is fairly well-known for puzzles, such as this MAA collection. If you restored his article I would ask to keep it. Three years of regular puzzles for a solid mathematics organization, by itself, establishes notability; and a little searching should show more, since '"Ed Pegg"' (in quotation marks) turns up tens of thousands of hits. --KSmrq^T 05:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(These comments do not preclude Pleasantville and KSmrq from commenting again below, of course.) So I wonder what the community at large thinks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I think this was a valid deletion for having "no assertion of notability." Of course, if people know the person to be notable, and flesh out the article to explain why, then the situation would be quite different. Insofar as the users above think he ought to be kept, and noting the fact that he appears in various other articles, I hope that this happens over the course of the present discussion. -- SCZenz 16:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I got 19,400 hits on Google by entering "Ed Pegg Jr". That's a lot of hits for a very precise string like that. I looked at a dozen sites or so ... they all look pretty legitimate to me (i.e., not self-puffery, but posts by other people who are interested in his work). He's not just into recreational math, either. He apparently helped Stephen Wolfram write his book A New Kind of Science, and he's involved somehow in the Mathworld web site. If I can find enough time to dig into it a little bit, I'll add some stuff to the existing article, to address SCZenz' comment. DavidCBryant 17:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, 49 results on Google News Archive including significant publications such as the NYT. --Dhartung | Talk 18:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Per my comments quoted above. Now that I have had a chance to see the article as deleted, it seems clear that it was missing relevant facts. But then, it was marked a stub. I have expanded it slightly, which I hope will suffice for now. --KSmrq^T 19:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I don't see a lot of value in some of the external links (MathWorld, MKS, NKS forum) in the article as it stands, without a description of Pegg's role in those links. MathPuzzle and Math Games are ok because Pegg is the primary contributer to them, but "contributes online to the associated forum" could be said about millions of non-notable people for various internet forums. I think the standard of notability for a non-professional mathematician such as this should be, not WP:PROF which doesn't make sense for this kind of person, but the general standards of notability for any person, in which we seek reputable publications that have written articles about Pegg. I see several such articles in Dhartung's search and think some of them should be added as references to the WP article. —David Eppstein 19:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The "contributes" phrase (which I added) is not so vague in the context of its use; the emphasis is on his seminal and on-going contribution to the NKS work. Disclaimer: I did not contribute the links you find of little value, and added the NKS remarks in support of others' observations about notability. For me, the MAA reference is sufficient evidence for a "keep".
If I may suggest an easy way to get some perspective on what really passes for "notable" on Wikipedia, view several random articles per day. (Try the link on the left side of each page.) I just did it five times and got
In my experience, these are fairly typical. I detest "advertising" articles and realize living persons necessarily draw extra scrutiny. Even so, I think we could ease off the trigger finger just a bit. I happen to recognize Ed Pegg's name, just as I recognize that of David Eppstein; but even someone who did not could quickly check that both have some claim to fame in their respective circles of activity. In fact, I find a disappointing lack of articles on numerous technical people who have an impeccable claim to notability. David will recognize the names of Marshall Bern, Frances Yao, and David Dobkin, for example, none with articles. And Dobkin is now the Dean of Faculty at Princeton University! --KSmrq^T 06:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I do recognize those names! And they are clearly worthy subjects for WP, but I'm probably too biased to add articles on them myself. But back to the subject. My complaint about links not adding value is not so much that the links were not relevant, but that their relevance was not sufficiently well explained. I think you can see how the "contributes to a forum" could be read differently than you intended, for instance. The recent edits to the article have helped in this respect. But I think some references to external articles about Pegg from Dhartung's search would make his notability more clear-cut. And since I haven't yet expressed an opinion on the AfD, let me add keep. —David Eppstein 07:02, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per Dhartung. Krimpet 20:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Pleasantville. -- Dominus 20:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per DavidCBryant. I can't imagine how this was eligible for speedy deletion. My faith in the assumption of good faith, already weakened by the recent Dave Winer deletion episode, is now gone. MarkBernstein 22:27, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, primarily per the MAA articles cited by KSmrq. That's a notable magazine and he's a regular columnist. I suspect mathpuzzle.com may be on the verge of notability too, which would be an additional claim. Mike Christie (talk) 14:28, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. -- Pete.Hurd 22:18, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.