Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Curtis Yarvin: Difference between revisions

Curtis Yarvin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I started looking at this article with the hope of expanding the sourcing, but quickly found...well, that there basically isn't any.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of coverage of Yarvin, but it falls pretty much exclusively into one of two categories:

• Coverage of his booting from the Strange Loop conference for, well, being an unabashed racist:

  [Slate http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2015/06/curtis_yarvin_booted_from_strange_loop_it_s_a_big_big_problem.html]

  Breitbart

  Breitbart, again

  The Conversation

• Fragmentary quotes or namedrops in general articles on "what on earth is this whole Dark Englightenment/Neoreactionary thing anyway"?

  Taki

  TechCrunch

  National Review

  American Thinker

  BuzzFeed

  TechCrunch, again

The only real exception is this blog entry on The Baffler, which is, well, a blog. A blog on a notable site, but I'm not sure if it qualifies as a reliable source. That's the only coverage I can find absent "he got banned from being a racist" that's more than about two lines long. Essentially it's quintessential WP:BLP1E, and should be deleted on that basis. Ironholds (talk) 14:47, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• A similar event happened on March 2016, where Yarvin's participation in LambdaConf generated much controversy. It seems to me that as this is the second controversy WP:BLP1E no longer applies. Man thinking —Preceding undated comment added 14:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The LambdaConf ban was directly for the fame of his neoreactionary views, so is part of the same thing - David Gerard (talk) 18:01, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep I don't much enjoy writing about Yarvin, but he's unlikely to go away just because we don't like him. I'm surprised to see Ironholds holding this out as BLP1E (Yarvin? He's everywhere, from geekdom to the fruitloop politics of the affluent geek's playpen).

Sad to say, because he really is unspeakably obnoxious, he would have been an interesting speaker at LambdaConf. No-one is more "lambdas everywhere" than Yarvin. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Okay; where is the everywhere, then? I'm looking for coverage >2 lines outside Strange Loop and not seeing it. Ironholds (talk) 16:11, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You listed a fair few yourself, in the nomination (a rather unusual departure for AfDs). If someone makes it to the lowbrow redtops like Buzzfeed, then they really have entered the public consciousness. Not that Buzzfeed is a journal of such repute that you'd wrap your chips in it, but it does refute the notion that Yarvin is only of note in some Randian ivory and monel tower. If you want a readable explanation of Urbit and why the tech geeks are paying interest, then try the Popehat link. Andy Dingley (talk) 17:47, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The main problem for this being a separate article right now is that at present, there's basically nothing that's an RS for this stuff. Even Urbit is rather lacking in RSes - David Gerard (talk) 17:56, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I listed Strange Loop references and one-line mentions. If someone makes it to the lowbrow redtops like Buzzfeed, they've entered the public consciousness. If they do it twice, and not in an offhand way, well, then we care. Ironholds (talk) 19:09, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep Here's an additional potential source: NYTimes column mentioning his name Sycron (talk) 18:54, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  @Sycron: as you say, yes, it mentions his name. That's not what WP:GNG calls for; it has to be substantive coverage. Ironholds (talk)

• Merge and redirect to Dark Enlightenment. He's marginally notable, but it's entirely for the DE/neoreaction stuff (which the LambdaConf ban was directly part of). The rest is marginal fluff at this stage. This shows in the article, which has turned into a fancruft piece made of references to his own blog because the third party sources to support a BLP article worth keeping as a separate article don't seem to actually exist. So add what little in Curtis Yarvin actually has third-party RS verifiability to that, and redirect there - David Gerard (talk) 17:55, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I would oppose a merge to either a political or an Urbit article. The problem is that Yarvin has two aspects to him: political and technical. Only by having a stand-alone article for him can we really represent this stuff. As he has already been canned from two conferences because of this overlap, the overlap is one of the most significant aspects about him. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:18, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• True, but of those two things, on a practical basis only one is notable. Has there been any coverage of Urbit outside the "...and he wanted to speak on Urbit but was blocked/churned up drama for being pro-slavery"? He has two elements, yes - only one of those elements, practically, has generated coverage, and it's not his code. Ironholds (talk) 19:22, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• He wasn't first invited to LambdaConf because of his political views, but because of the architecture (or deliberate lack of) for Urbit. I first encountered him through the discussion groups around Google App Engine and Amazon Lambda. Andy Dingley (talk) 19:44, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Which is nice, but still not coverage. There is (fortunately or unfortunately) a gap between being able to point to things people have done and a sort of general gestalt, and notability for those purposes. Ironholds (talk) 19:46, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
• Yes, but there aren't RSes talking about Urbit as a significant thing. It has some techie buzz at the blog level because it's "interesting", in the special techie sense of the word "what the hell even is that" or "I ain't even mad, that's amazing". But it's had zero RS coverage actually about Urbit that I can find. Same for his career in WAP browser development, which I looked quite hard for and found almost no traces of. Blog buzz is not WP:RS material. Please produce coverage of these things in WP:RSes that would meet the "every fact has to be demonstrated notable" aspect of WP:BLP - David Gerard (talk) 21:50, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I'd be hard-pressed to find significant coverage of "WAP browsers". Maybe Grandad would remember them? Andy Dingley (talk) 22:04, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• really? Ironholds (talk) 23:45, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:56, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:56, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 17:56, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• keep Two separate controversies means that BLP1E doesn' apply. The fact that both controversies are very similar doesn't alter that. JoshuaZ (talk) 22:16, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  @JoshuaZ: where's the RS coverage of the second controversy? Ironholds (talk) 23:46, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  @Ironholds: I take it JoshuaZ is referring to the Yarvin's role in the NRx/DE movement as the "second controversy". As far as RS coverage goes, how about Gere, Charlie (2015). "13Media". The Year's Work in Critical and Cultural Theory. 23 (1): 270–290. doi:10.1093/ywcct/mbv012. ISSN 1077-4254. which says "Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this kind of thinking can be found in what Nick Land calls the 'Dark Enlightenment', or, in the name coined by Mencius Moldbug (otherwise known as software engineer and quondam poet Curtis Yarvin), the 'Neoreactionary Movement'...". (Surely an academic journal published by OUP is a high quality RS.) SJK (talk) 03:06, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. The nom has noted a number of reliable sources covering the StrangeLoop dis-invitation controversy, and mentioning his role in Dark Enlightenment/NRx. RS exist on both topics, and I don't agree that RS covering NRx mention him in the form of "Fragmentary quotes or namedrops in general articles", since it is generally acknowledged that his blog is one of the instigators of the NRx movement. While the dis-invitation and NRx are related, they are separate things (one is a single event which received coverage in RS, the other is an ideological movement which has also received coverage in RS) so I don't think this is BLP1E. SJK (talk) 03:00, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  Another RS mentioning him (under his "Mencius Moldbug" psuedonym) is Charlton, Bruce G. (2010). "The cancer of bureaucracy: How it will destroy science, medicine, education; and eventually everything else". Medical Hypotheses. 74 (6): 961–965. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2009.11.038. ISSN 0306-9877.. That's an Elsevier journal, so again should be considered a good quality RS. SJK (talk) 03:09, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  Or how about – Dyga, Edwin. The future of Australian conservatism: Mainstream or sidestream? [online]. Quadrant, Vol. 58, No. 10, Oct 2014: 46-58. Availability: <http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=629207990052763;res=IELLCC> ISSN: 0033-5002. [cited 26 Mar 16]. – which discusses the “Neo-Reactionary” movement (chiefly popularised by the work of Curtis Yarvin. Quadrant (magazine) is noteworthy as arguably one of the major, if not the major, intellectual outlet of Australian conservatism. SJK (talk) 03:14, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  @SJK: can you quote the excerpts mentioning Yarvin from both, in their entirety? Ironholds (talk) 04:05, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]