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 keep. John254 01:23, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Dennis Fairclough (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

As a professor, he seems to fail WP:PROF. If he teaches "Borland C++ Builder and Java", he's teaching vocational skills rather than research computer science, and so isn't likely to have made significant contributions in the field, and indeed a search on Google scholar turns up nothing of note. As the article suggests, his importance to Novell's development is also questionable. According to this history, he was never a full-time employee, and Google web, book, and news searches reveal no substantial coverage of his role there (or of him in any other respect, for that matter). Jfire (talk) 23:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep I dont think he's necessarily notable as a professor--seems a second career. His notability is as a founder of the precursor company to Novell. This was pre-google, of course--most of the information in Google is derived from Wikipedia, but I found among them two reasonably good internet sources. as their reliability depends on the reputation of the authors, and I don;t know about this myself, I rely on the people who do to help out with this one. DGG (talk) 00:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment - The sources are [1] and [2]. Reading the former, one is inclined to believe that Fairclough played a rather minor role at Novell's precursor, Novell Data Systems, working there part time as a hardware engineer as he finished his PhD. On the other hand, the second source, a blog post, presents him as the "real founder" of Novell -- though note that in the comments to the blog post, the author admits that he hadn't read the first source, and that after reading it he realized that "There were many details I didn't know. My myopic view included one small part of the proverbial elephant." Jfire (talk) 02:19, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletion discussions. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep As a founder of Novell, he is at least semi-notable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luksuh (talk • contribs) 03:55, April 5, 2008
• Keep Notable person. Also nominator used google as justification of AfD in a manner out of line with wikipedia guidelines. --Firefly322 (talk) 10:20, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- "out of line with wikipedia guidelines"? Please Firefly, that's clearly not true. Jfire (talk) 15:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Firefly, I suggest you read Wikipedia:Search engine test. A "Google Test" is perfectly acceptable at a general level. Please don't accuse other editors of not understanding guidelines when your own comments indicate that you do not. Pedro :  Chat  20:05, 6 April 2008 (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.