Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Muneeb Ali

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 no consensus. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:08, 6 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Muneeb Ali

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notability not established, most sources are actually about his company, Blockstack Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Finance-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Business-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. Ysangkok (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or Redirect to company, reasoning per nomination. (Not sure target article should exist either, but while it does that's the best option.) - David Gerard (talk) 08:44, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and Improve. I read this as primarily a page for scientific contributions (not commercial ones). The Gilder book goes into story of his personal life and PhD thesis. The Reason TV reference is about PhD thesis. Protothread work, Namecoin security discovery, Wireless sensor network publications are unrelated to Blockstack. Google scholar reference reports 1500 citations. I do think that the article should be improved. Silicon Valley show and Amazon Blockchain show does not have references and section on research works is minimal. A quick search shows media articles that use expert commentary from him (unrelated to Blockstack). See FoxNews. He seems to appear on lists of top 10 most influential people in crypto industry (not currently covered in the article). Freedaemon (talk) 13:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
- So, where are the references that will demonstrate all these claims? A BLP should not have sourcing as bad as it presently is. If you're claiming he meet WP:NACADEMIC, do you have the cites that show it? - David Gerard (talk) 17:06, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm not as experienced on Wikipedia as you and others here, so apologies in advance if I misunderstand something. As for WP:NACADEMIC, I think this should meet "The person has had a substantial impact outside academia in their academic capacity." I view this as a case similar to Matei Zaharia, his PhD thesis resulted in Apache Spark open-source project and Databricks the company. Here Muneeb's PhD thesis resulted in Blockstack open-source project. He is CEO of a company but I do not think the company is notable (the company does not have a Wikipedia page). The open-source project and the academic work that led to the project however meet criteria. Blockstack cryptocurrency has a publicly traded market cap of $108M USD today, which is substantial impact outside academia (resulting from a primarily academic work). The academic work itself has 355 citations for just one paper. The academic work is included in computer networking textbook. None of this is related to being CEO of a company, which seems to be the primary point of @Ysangkok. Therefore, the article and sources need to be improved. Freedaemon (talk) 18:01, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Freedaemon: The market cap is not relevant in any way, even if it could be measured reliably.

The book is self-published and such books cannot establish notability. Ali isn't actually an academic, so I don't know why you'd try to claim him notable as one. You're not a career academic if your thesis gets cited. The citation count cannot be trusted, since the cryptocurrency aspect skews the incentives that otherwise would make such a counting of citations make sense.

This discussion does not concern the notability of Blockstack, so let's not talk about that.

As for the comparison with Zaharia, note that Ali was never a professor, and Zaharia is an assistant professor. If citations could be measured to denote notability (I don't know if they can), note how Zaharia has 50k citations (according Google Scholar) and Ali has 1,5k.

Any cryptocurrency whitepaper gets cited if the currency gets attention. That will happen regardless of whether it was written by an academic or not. So does that mean that any cryptocurrency whitepaper author is notable under NACADEMIC? I wouldn't think so. --Ysangkok (talk) 22:30, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ysangkok: The facts you listed above are demonstrably incorrect. I'd request you to do more research.

The Computer Networking textbook by Larry Peterson is the standard textbook used by hundreds of universities globally. An entire generation of engineers have been raised by learning about computer networking from it and you are categorizing it as "self-published". Yes, Larry Peterson recently converted the book to open-source. Does not take away the importance and significance of the book.

The Blockstack paper is not a cryptocurrency whitepaper. In fact, it's not a whitepaper. It's a USENIX publication pre-dating any cryptocurrency and has no mention of any cryptocurrency. Also, cryptocurrency whitepapers don't get published at USENIX.

So Zaharia is notable because he is an assistant professor? Zaharia is notable because of the works he has done. He is known in the industry for his Apache Spark work primarily. There are thousands of assistant professors in the world otherwise. I gave the example to highlight that computer science PhD thesis works that get commercialized and gain widespread adoption are rare. If the resulting commercialization and growth (however you measure growth, does not need to be market cap) is notable then the original thesis work is also notable. That was the point of the analogy.

Your claims about cryptocurrency skewing citations would be very hard to back up with any data. First of all, the paper under discussion here is not the cryptocurrency paper. The cryptocurrency paper is different. Secondly, there is no mention of any cryptocurrency in the paper. Further, you can just review the citations to see why it's being cited. In my quick research, it's mostly being cited as alternate DNS and decentralized storage. Freedaemon (talk) 16:33, 19 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Freedaemon: Regarding the USENIX Annual Technical Conference publication, it is not peer-reviewed, so it fails criteria 1: Wikipedia:Notability (academics)#Specific criteria notes. So he isn't notable as an academic. Can you point me to a guideline under which Mr. Ali is notable? --Ysangkok (talk) 17:31, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Ysangkok: You literally got facts wrong again. USENIX ATC is peer-reviewed and considered a top conference in computer science that has been around since 1995. Notability is the tier-1 news publications (like WSJ) and book chapters. They clearly qualify under Wikipedia guidelines. I apologize but you are repeatedly getting facts wrong and I'm afraid that it is confusing this discussion. Freedaemon (talk) 18:06, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and Edit A Google search does show that the subject is notable. He spoke at a TED (Conference) in New York which highlights his notability and knowledge on internet and distributed systems - [1]. The CNBC story and WSJ (which are both compliant with WP:RS)- [2] - talks in significant detail about his contribution to the crypto-currency industry. It is known that the industry is not regulated, so to build a regulatory framework and get qualified by SEC for the token offering is definitely a major contribution in the industry. The Reason_TV story complies with WP:SIGCOV, which talks about his thought process behind the technology of the company. The page looks scattered and needs improvement in terms of flow of content to align it with WP:CCPOL guideline. It can trimmed down to keep only relevant information and references. The references can be improved, for instance, he being the author of Protothread can have a better reference such as the Google Scholar link - [3] The entire last paragraph of the lead section talking about him being the main character in a book and his appearances can be removed. Nasty Tunes of Sally (talk) 23:26, 15 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 09:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Delete per WP:PROF and WP:TOOSOON - his thesis was defended three years ago. Bearian (talk) 17:58, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Bearian: I'm relatively new here so forgive any misunderstanding. I wanted to learn how the thesis defended three years ago fact is relevant to two main notability reasons (a) commercialization of thesis and (b) crypto regulatory work. Is the thinking that the commercialization of technology is WP:TOOSOON and does not have independent reliable sources? And how does WP:TOOSOON work with the impact of regulatory work with sources like WSJ and Yahoo Fiannce? Trying to better understand things -- thank you! Freedaemon (talk) 02:10, 24 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - at the first glance, I felt the BLP is violating WP:INHERIT and inheriting notability only from his company. But, upon more reading, it appears that he is notable for his contributions to the crypto world. There are multiple verifiable third party sources that meet WP:IS and WP:V. So, definitely not a failed verification. I don’t find passing mentions like this helping though. There is a citation needed remark, I feel that entire line needs to be omitted as it doesn’t help establish any notability whatsoever. Even the show mentioned isn’t notable and fails verification as per WP:FAILEDVERIFICATION. I am not a crypto expert, but definitely an enthusiast, and know that it is an unregulated industry. With his recent contribution in establishing a regulatory framework approved by SEC, it does make him a notable figure in the industry and worth Wikipedia inclusion.--Camella Gandhi (talk) 20:38, 23 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Camella Gandhi: Welcome to Wikipedia, Camella. You can't just be picking arbitrary events and deciding whether they constitute notability. There is no Wikipedia guideline that says that the CEO behind a token offering becomes notable if it is regulated by the SEC. It may be notable to you as a crypto enthusiast, but consensus has already been established, that Wikipedia should be more sceptical than that. Mr. Ali doesn't qualify, according to our existing notability guidelines. --Ysangkok (talk) 17:31, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Camella Gandhi: Thanks for the comments! I agree with them generally. I feel that this discussion is not moving forward and some of the input from Ysangkok is factually incorrect which can be confusing for participants here.

Let me summarize the discussion here to help move this forward. Here are reasons for notability:

Muneeb is co-author of Blockstack and Protothread. Both projects are notable according to Wikipedia criteria and have established articles for the respective projects.

Both the Blockstack publication and the Protothread publication are peer-reviewed (Ysangkok's comments are incorrect). And proper references to both should be added to the article.

WSJ, Yahoo Finance, and CNBC establish notability for regulatory work in the industry and are both compliant with WP:RS. Yahoo Finance reference is currently not in the article and should be added.

Nasty Tunes of Sally points that he spoke at a TED (Conference) in New York which highlights his notability and knowledge on internet and distributed systems - [4]. This is not referenced in the current article and should be added.

Muneeb's work has been included in the Computer Networking textbook by Larry Peterson and in the George Gilder book. Ysangkok's input about Computer Networking book is incorrect. The book has been published by Morgan Kaufmann and has been used as a textbook in universities for decades. Reference to this book should be added to the article.

The Reason_TV story complies with WP:SIGCOV.

A second WSJ article also establishes notability (outside regulatory work).

To help move the discussion forward I'd request other folks to specifically comment on the above 7 references/points as to why these qualify or not. What seems to be throwing off some people is a mix of academic, commercial, and regulatory work. Having a mix of works is not a reason for disqualification and these can be evaluated using specific sources. Freedaemon (talk) 19:42, 27 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Andrew nyr (talk, contribs) 05:59, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - As an Academic he qualifies. According to Wikipedia:Notability_(academics)#Specific_criteria_notes “The most typical way of satisfying Criterion 1 is to show that the academic has been an author of highly cited academic work”

I just did a little searching and found that he is the author of numerous research papers that have been cited by hundreds of others. Check the link here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Cu_SoyMAAAAJ&hl=en The top one cited over 500 times and the next 3 cited over 100 times. Total 1500+ citations per Google. I will attempt to add some info to his page as well. Expertwikiguy (talk) 08:02, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is a difficult one, but I'm going to say Keep since despite the COI issue, he does appear to pass GNG. Foxnpichu (talk) 11:17, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I have added some additional info and sources, such as WSJ, Fortune and Forbes sources. He has also been TEDx speaker and has spoken at other industry conferences. I feel the page was poorly written before, did not have good sources and did not display his achievements as an academic. Prior "delete" voters should revisit their voting again. Expertwikiguy (talk) 18:22, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Expertwikiguy: I think that the regulatory work and commercialization of thesis are more important and your edits focus more on research works. However, that is a topic for a separate discussion i.e., discussion about how to improve the article once the delete discussion concludes. I agree with you that the prior version was poorly written and lacked sources. I listed 7 sources above, 4 of 7 were not included in the article before. Thanks for adding the links to the research papers now. Freedaemon (talk) 20:17, 28 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and improve Article covers the subject and notability to me is obvious. There are enough very reliable citations to support this. The advancements happening in blockchain and crypto are changing the world. It's just that most people are not knowledgeable at all in this space -- yet. The most notable fact IMO is: "He is known for the regulatory framework that resulted in the first SEC-qualified offering for a crypto asset. Being the first of anything, expecially in a highly regulated environment, in a fast-growing, world-changing technology is notable; I'm confident this article will be improved quickly as more blockchain and crypto applications roll out. 10Sany1? (talk) 20:41, 30 October 2020 (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.