Renowned reverse engineer Fravia says goodbye
fravia.com
fravia.com
(Google cache still has it, as of today)
Fravia had a radical point of view about cracking and compiled practical information, including how to search for anything in the web, that he loved. There aren't any "papers" that can be cited.
There are thus two reasons why it's difficult to establish his notability. One, that he was in an underground (not to say illegal) field. The other that it happened in the web, I don't say that Wikipedia should do anything, I couldn't care less, But, as a matter of fact, he was indeed well known ten years ago.
So if it's hard to establish notability in a verifiable way because he's underground and online, it's probably not worth the trouble to fight to keep the article in the WP; it's not appropriate for the encyclopedia.
OTOH, I wonder what will happen when more and more people, events and... stuff will be relevant only online in blogs, forums and not necesarily press sites. Do you think Wikipedia will change its ways?
these people was reversing "the reality" before reversing could be considered a profession at all, from 9 to 18? 401K?
best regards
Nevertheless, I'd say he's young too if he doesn't know who +Fravia is. Kee-raist.
... Protected Fravia: Repeatedly recreated ...
(wasn't me, by the way - I've only done occasional anonymous minor fixes and original source contribs)
P.S. I also looked for a place to protest the deletion, but couldn't find anything suitable.
P.P.S. Please do not upvote this and my grandparent comment. Thanks.
In this case, I think someone well-meaning tried to enforce the 'notoriety' policy. Now, it's a matter of judgement if a reverse engineer known to hundreds or thousands deserves a place along Donald Duck.
Personally, I don't see much harm in giving a Wikipedia page to anyone who ever lived.
I feel the same way.
They have arguments for that, and they are sensible arguments.
For instance, if you provide articles for everyone who ever lived, someone needs to police those articles. If you don't police the articles, you end up with tens of thousands of pages making specious claims about people, some of which may be damaging to the subject of the article, others of which may be damaging to the fields those people represent, all under the aegis of one of the most important sites on the Internet.
Also, WP is by design not a primary source. Original research isn't allowed on WP. It's not WP's job to validate and referee research, to provide political analysis, or to promote people and companies. But the overwhelming majority of the content you'd get in articles about non-notable people would be inherently original research.
By restricting the WP to summaries of independent reliable sourcing on notable people, the problem of maintaining an entire encyclopedia as a volunteer effort is at least tractable. I think veteran Wikipedians could probably win the argument that eliminating those standards altogether could make maintaining WP intractable.
Also, remember that the article we're discussing here really sucked. Fravia might be important, but whoever wrote that article did him a disservice if he was.
Have you ever read a WP RfA? From the way you wrote this comment, I'm guessing you haven't. Wikipedia adminship is cliquish and obnoxious, but the process is relatively rigorous; WP users read through entire multi-year edit histories, dredging up "controversies" for public debate. If there's a cabal, it's an organic one.
Moreover, admins don't singlehandledly delete and protect pages. This page was "protected" because normal WP users effectively deleted it (replacing it with a redirect). There was a discussion about whether to do that, in which anyone with an interest in the article could have participated. There was a procedural shortcut here (since the page was redirected instead of deleted), but there was a procedure, and it was an open and transparent one.
At any step along the way from creation to protection, decisions could have been appealed to yet another open, transparent forum, where Fravia's proponents could have debated ad nauseum why WP needed an article about him. They have plenty of opportunities to present evidence for his notability and inclusion.
Pages get "protected" when people ignore those opportunities and procedures, and undo the work that the WP "fulltimers" do to maintain the encyclopedia.
Your comment is a caricature of what actually happens on WP. It also ignores the reality of a massive living document, exposed to the public at large in the top of most Google results and routinely highlighted in the mainstream media. If preventing an article from showcasing Fravia was a mistake, 1000 other cases this week of people attempting to SEO their products or write pages about their girlfriends weren't.
Thank Reddit for this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Matt_Crypto#Fravia
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/8hxhx/goodbye_f...
Where am I wrong? If I'm not, why should you be taken seriously about this subject?
Replying to your post as I have done has been a waste of time, I know exactly what I experienced there (I was SHOCKED when it happened) and discussing it here in great detail (as in, go to the admin's discussion page, and look for the exchange we had then, to copy and paste here) is absolutely meaningless, a waste of time, Wikipedia as it exists now is a complete waste of time, it's a complete failure, and it constitutes negative value, as I outlined in a previous post about this. I could give a hoot whether you take me seriously on this subject, it means nothing to me, I was replying to pg's comment.
Edit: since when do YOU decide what is becoming or unbecoming here?
I also apologize for dragging in this topic. Mind if I take it out now and hang it to dry ?
If I become too emotional about this point with Wikipedia, it is because the geek/nerd/techie/propellerhead/[INSERT TERM FOR US] in me is just OUTRAGED at what I witnessed firsthand at wikipedia.
Note to self: avoid wikipedia related discussions, and try to stick to Slashdot from now on.
but i have to admit, you've done a really good job of curbing your own inflammatory language. i find your comments much easier to read as a result. if only we could all be so flexible in the face of unexpected challenges.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...
AfDs can be contested by doing a deletion review. In this case, based in the comments in the AfD I assume there wouldn't be an objection to writing a new sourced article. It was probably protected because the same content was being readded, not because the article itself should not be recreated.
Note that the outcome of the AfD was not followed; the content does not seem to have been merged into the original article. Creating a paragraph in the article on reverse engineering on the guy seemed to be the original intent.
The standard for inclusion is notability.
This argument is a tempest in a teacup. Either there are reliable independent sources establishing that Fravia is notable, or there aren't. If there are, you will have no real trouble getting and keeping an article. If there aren't, the article will be repeatedly deleted, by people who don't know anything about reverse engineering and thus won't care at all about your arguments.
When this exact topic came up yesterday, I spent 3-4 minutes looking for a reliable source that established notability for Fravia, and I came up blank. Who has written about him, outside of blogs? Surely, given how important he was to reverse engineering, somebody has mentioned him, or he's been published somewhere.
The half I don't regret is that maybe someone here can contribute better to Wikipedia. Reverse engineering guys are mostly tight-lipped, but they're family ...
I like to watch Steve Jobs' Stanford commencement speech, every now and again, to remind me of that fact:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
Transcribed: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html
Just in case some people don't know, Fravia passed away 2 days ago (2009/05/03)
Gobsmacked by this. I've been starting to apply Stoicism towards my life and I'm speechless.
Stoicism: This has been posted on News.YC before but this might impact you:
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/04/13/stoicism-101...
He had been an expert in software reversing (which is related to software reverse engineering) and in the last 10 years devoted a considerable amount of efforts to the field Internet Information Searching.
I was a personal friend of mr Ravia, and knew him for more than 10 years. He was able to build a considerable community of experts in the field around him. The article will definitely be improved now, after is untimely death.
Revert back the redirect.
Regards, Marco Guardigli Technical Director TomWare Group
So long and thanks for all the info!
So thanks to Fravia and sorry to see him go...
Is there anywhere we could properly express thanks/condolences to the family? (If not... Is that a YC startup?) :)
His pages on reverse-engineering were my earliest findings on the internet. When it used to take days to download a 20mb file.
Given the inadequate page on WP while he was alive, I felt the need and urge of updating it, then this hell begun. I am registered in WP since 2005, and seldom made some little contributes.
Seems that many of you benefited from Fravia's writings.
Yesterday, at Fravia's final burial, i was blowing a dandelion in the wind. Tiny seeds flowing in the sky in the beautiful green valley. Those flying little seeds were like the many teaching he left inside many of us. a suitable picture could be this: http://photos.jibble.org/albums/Dandelions/dandelion_seeds_b...
Please help me in fixing this Fravia Wikipedia Entry. I simply think he deserves it.
--Marco Guardigli
rather than reverting the changes, try creating a better article from scratch. (of course, its locked until the 12th to prevent a flood of people trying to revert it, but just wait until the 13th)
One of the first things I found when joing the brave new world with my 28.8. The first thing i found on that new "www" thing that made me realize its potential, back in the bad old days when searching/finding anything on it was a bit of a black art. We'll miss you.
"So long, and thanks for all the fish."