Talk:Zed Shaw

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Notability[edit]

This page seems to have been created for advertisement purposes. The biography appears to be about an open source software engineer, but further investigation shows that he's main activity is writing self published books. The page links to these products. I don't believe the subject satisfies the requirements for a biographical entry. If the software has some importance (mongrel, from what it reads), there should be a page for the software with a note about the author, not the other way around. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.63.249.185 (talk) 03:40, 5 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This subject is fairly notable, if we're just going off of WP:BLP and [[WP:V]. Newsblogs are acceptable sources, and TechCrunch is likely a reliable source in terms of goings-on in the tech community. I'm going to restore the deleted content and integrate some of the links posted here into the article content, as well as some others I've found. In the future, please try to work to improve the page rather than outright deleting content. —shoecream 04:16, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this page back? I thought it was agreed this article fails the notability requirement. Can't we just delete this once and for good? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.120.52 (talk) 12:12, October 21, 2009 (UTC)

How is the author of a popular web server not notable? cool-RR (talk) 21:40, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think he is most notable for being the troll change 334991564 mentioned. Mongrel was only popular among RoR developers and that limits how popular it can ever be. Nginx and Apache are popular. Mongrel is niche. I also find the label of "first modern approach" to anything slightly disturbing and an unbelievable overstatement.
Announcing My Coding Retirement
Zed Shaw Goes Nuclear On Our Community
Rails Is A Ghetto (removed) Rbanffy (talk) 16:54, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"Mongrel was only popular among RoR developers"
Yes. There's a lot of Rails developers. And Zed's more noted for Lamson and Mongrel2 than writing essays these days.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.240.128.75 (talk) 12:08, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How isn't he notable? He's not some random Joe from the street; I don't think there's anyone knowledgeable in the tech community that hasn't heard of him Zed Shaw - TechCrunch - I could find thousands of other pages in Wikipedia of people that are much less "notable" than him —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.26.129.226 (talk) 12:47, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Classic example of "Others are less notable and included, so he should be too" argument. "Everyone knows him" - not a reason either, even if it were true. This person's notability should be judged by the official notability guidelines and nothing else. I'm not saying Shaw isn't notable. I never heard of him, but who am I to judge? Neither is anyone else.
Articles about him published by a decent source (print if possible - yes, that's biased) would be convincing.87.78.3.205 (talk) 18:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The basic notability guidelines for people: Notability Guidelines (People). The secondary, reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject source material requested: [http://techcrunch.com/2008/01/01/zed-shaw-puts-the-smack-down-on-the-rails-community/ Zed Shaw - TechCrunch 67.171.205.73 (talk) 05:18, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The notability guidelines specifically state that the secondary sources should be reliable. TechCrunch is not a reliable source of information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.36.142.157 (talk) 11:58, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually yes it is (at least going on prior discussions) - for factual technology related information. --Errant [tmorton166] (chat!) 12:10, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, can we please put the fact Zed Shaw is clearly notable, for better or worse, to bed? A search of the google news archives clearly shows number of references (You can find a ton more if you don't limit to google news): http://www.google.com/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=zed+shaw#sclient=psy&hl=en&safe=off&tbs=nws:1%2Car%3A1&q=%22zed+shaw%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=1beae674df224b9 We have references here from slashdot, to theregister, to CNET, to Linux Journal, to cio.com, to Computerworld.. take your pick. (Mind you not all coverage is 100% positive).

Apparently he has print journalists covering him too: http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/1110277861.html?dids=1110277861:1110277861&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+28,+2006&author=Miriah+Meyer,+Special+to+the+Tribune&pub=Chicago+Tribune&desc=Gamer+cracks+code,+finds+jewel+;+Chicagoan+lands+in+the+spotlight+after+creating+Ruby+on+Rails,+a+red-+hot+Web+development+tool&pqatl=google Brandorr (talk) 17:42, 4 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

this list seems to be composed only of blogs (some of them hosted on well know sites, but no more than that). The last entry shows a possible reference to the subject. Notice though that not everyone referenced in a printed publication is worthy of an encyclopedia article. I don't think this list can even get close the notability standards needed for inclusion of this entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.35.151.56 (talk) 02:24, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The subject's notability seems to be based only on his own blog and a piece of niche open source software. Based on that, thousands of other open source software writers should be included in Wikipedia. The articles listed only provide citations to the subject's blog, that shouldn't be enough to guarantee notability.
From the linked author's website, it seems that this entry is being used just an advertisement for e-books. I suggest the removal of the page until further proof of notability is stablished. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.102.25.237 (talk) 02:51, 15 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
agreed -- the majority of the references on the article are self-published (both books and websites see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources)). I've removed that content until someone can find a non-partial third party that has written about them to prove notability.
I'm a published tech author with some pretty well-referenced open source as well as a high-profile scientific application to my name. I have no Wikipedia page and don't expect one. This page is a personal advertisement better suited to myvanityurl.com/resume than to Wikipedia. I vote for deletion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.187.8.74 (talk) 22:59, 2 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree completely that this page has all indications of personal advertisement, with several links to self published material and his own page. I wonder if the entry was crafted by the subject himself or one of his friends. I would just delete the page until someone else can establish the purported notability. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.35.151.56 (talk) 02:12, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It looks that, as noted by others, this is just a vanity page that makes advertisements for this guy. He has hardly done anything of importance other than writing blog posts and a few programming books. I guess he maintains this page to help improve his book sales. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.248.140.10 (talk) 14:32, 23 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I came here because I know he has some controversial opinions, and I wanted to know whether he's a hack or not. I found the article useful on how I should real his writings.86.115.209.138 (talk) 15:46, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]