Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sarah Gordon

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Listed on Cleanup since March. Do we know this person? This is strange. --Jiang 17:07, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

  • "Strange" is right. The link back to the so-called "webpage" is just to a personal one. Delete. - Lucky 6.9 18:21, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete, looks like Vanity.--Woggly 19:46, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Jiang's search is indeed interesting; however, a search for ["Sarah Gordon" vx] brings up a swack (297 to be precise) of hits. ["Sarah Gordon" computer] returns over 3000, of which almost all the first fifty were for this person. She does seem to have some cachet in the field of computer security. Denni☯ 02:34, 2004 Jun 21 (UTC)
  • Delete, someone in her field could easily have many Google hits without being famous. - SimonP 14:51, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Ambivalenthysteria 21:39, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Extended the article. --Palapala 11:31, 2004 Jun 23 (UTC)
  • Delete. Non-notable person. It's easy to have many Google hits if you're a modern person active on the Web. - Centrx 20:17, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
    • Funny argument. Tired of reading that it needs Google hits to be "notable", and now it's exactly the other way around...? How notable is a female who obviously has reached the top level within her profession (which, btw, is still heavily male-dominated)? --Palapala 18:22, 2004 Jun 24 (UTC)
      • It's not the other way around: a high number of Google hits does not mean that person is not notable, only that, theoretically, the number of hits required to qualify that person as sufficiently famous is greater. - Centrx 06:40, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
  • We keep Pokemon characters and obscure StarCraft units but delete an article on a real person who has made real contributions to computing? How odd. Denni☯ 00:27, 2004 Jun 27 (UTC)
  • Delete. My real name is not an uncommon one, but a Google search combining my real name with further keywords to refer to what I am known for gets over 600 entries. Yet I wouldn't expect to find myself listed in Wikipedia (and I'm not). People are indeed more likely to want to look up information about many Pokemon characters and obscure StarCraft units than they are to look up information about me. jallan 19:03, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)
The point is not whether or not I can manufacture a search phrase to pull in google hits. I can be pretty "famous" that way too, and I =do= have an uncommon name. It is also not whether or not people will search for Pokemon characters over "Sarah Gordon". More people will look up Pokemon characters than will look up Alan Turing. Does that mean the Turing article should be toast? What matters entirely is whether or not Sarah Gordon is noteworthy enough or not to appear in Wikipedia. My Google research says yes, she is. Denni☯ 02:39, 2004 Jun 28 (UTC)
It doesn't, in my opinion. And from the article I don't see any reason why anyone would look her up more than thousands of other people who have made a minor impact in their profession in some way or have contributed to various journals or written for magazines or even written a book or two. Maybe the article doesn't properly make clear what she's done. If not, it should be improved to make it clear. Or you might provide a list of entries in Wikipedia of people in her field or related fields of approximately equal accomplishment or who have less accomplishments to their credit. Does every senior research fellow at Symantec also deserve articles and everyone in a comparable position in other organizations? If not, why not? If so, how many articles are we considering? One of the things Wikipedia is not is a biographical dictionary. It is not supposed to contain a digital Who's Who within it. Perhaps that should be a separate Wiki project? jallan 04:27, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)


Well hello and thanks for all the comments about my work. I'm not sure how I ended up in Wikipedia to begin with, although its pretty cool - but if you guys who are more familiar with it think its not an appropraite or useful place to have a listing about my stuff, please do remove with my blessing!.

Since some people asked some questions, I'll answer here. (p.s. you can mail me directly as I might not get back here, I was just unable to leep tonite and was looking for hits on Symantec and here I was...)

To the person who wonders why anyone might look me up - from the e-mails I get, they seem to read something or see something in some other media and then go to do a more thorough search - either on me, or my subject area.

To the person how mentioned my being at the top of the game in a male dominated industry - yes, that is very ironic considering not only did I not set out to be there, I didn't even set out to be in the game at all...it is kind of weird though, few people ever write about the gender thing.

To the person suggesting that there be a list of others in my field who have provided approx. equal accomplishments - so far, there aren't any such people in this specific area. Its a very specialized area, and people generally have focused on other aspects of the problem. That is what has made this work unique. This will change in the future as Universities adopt a multidiscipinary approach to security (as some are doing!) but for now, the work just isn't there. That's why people look me up - there isn't anyone else yet.

To the person who commented on the web page - not sure why there was a link to my own page (which is drastically in need of being redone and which is actually being redone ...) but that is where anyone can get all the papers, articles, press/media links, etc.

Best wishes, Sarah

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