Talk:Joel Spolsky/Archive 1

Should include

Should include a discussion of Spolsky's ideas.

Career

Does "Software Engineer" best describe him now? Should "entrepeneur" be added to the list? Usability Designer?

Not sure how to best define him; from his blog he seems to do just about anything. Software Engineer, Architect or Manager seem most appropriate to me; keep it with Engineer fel64 23:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

He's also a very good writer! He has real writing ability -- he wrote an article on character sets that actually managed to be not only interesting, but also funny. That really does take skill. Maerk 13:16, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Joel Spolsky is gay

Worth mentioning :-)

I'm not at all sure it is worth mentioning. Joel is known for being a software engineer and a writer, and for his website and company. His homosexuality seems completely irrelevant to these issues. Now, I'm not saying we need to specifically NOT mention the fact that he's gay, I just don't think it is relevant. We also don't mention his height, where he gets his drycleaning done, or his favourite movies. Now, if Mr. Spolsky starts actively promoting gay rights, that's another matter. --Yamla 21:19, 2005 May 31 (UTC)

It's just as relevant as the information about his childhood and the military service in Israel...

Personally I think it's a little bit less important than service.--Grimboy 11:09, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's an important part of who he is. But we can't just shove "Spolsky is a homosexual" into the article. -- Cyrius|✎ 06:22, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that it's particularly important. There's no reason to suppress this information, but I'm not sure where it fits in, either. He's not particularly known as a gay programmer or gay writer or gay anything, nor is he involved with anyone notable. In short, if it comes up, sure, we can mention it. But I haven't seen it come up yet. Al 15:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Well it's here on the talk page if anyone is curious. It can go on the article if someone come up with a pretext :) Is there a wiki policy on outing people? Mathiastck 23:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Hardly "outing", as he doesn't make a secret of it. I'm with Al and Yamla, and also think that a bald mention of the fact - tagging "Spolsky is homosexual" on to the end of a paragraph - would be in rather poor taste. A possible compromise might be to say that he "lives in New York with boyfriend Jared Foo" (Not sure if he's ever mentioned Jared's surname, but he used the term "boyfriend" here: [1] ). That makes the point without labouring it. PeteVerdon 00:01, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I added a sentence and some categories. I hope that's in order. --137.205.76.44 00:37, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Seems notable to me, as long as we don't dwell on it. Patstuart^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just changed "He is openly gay and has a boyfriend named Jared, to whom he dedicated his books..." to "He is the author of two books, [X] and [Y], both of which he has dedicated to his boyfriend, Jared". No, Wikipedia is not censored, but the main focus of the sentence should surely be his accomplishments rather than his sexual orientation, given that the latter is not the reason he is notable. -- simxp (talk) 21:27, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Joel Spolsky citizenship

Should include a paragraph about citizenship. For example, serving in a foreign army usually leads one to forfeit US citizenship. Is he Israeli, or American, or both? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.99.68 (talk) 07:44, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Lack of references

I noticed that this article doesn't seem to have any references, aside from Spolsky's own publications and websites. This is a concern, especially for trying to make the case that his site is "popular". Before I go adding the "unreferenced" template to this article though, I thought I'd post here -- could anyone watching this article please try to include external (non-Spolsky) references about his "fame"? For example, has he been profiled in any major newspapers or magazines, that verify his "popularity"? If not, the promotional language in this article should be scaled back. --Elonka 18:32, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't think that there's any genuine controversy over whether the site is popular, but it's not something easily cited. It might be nice if we had a reliable source that referred to the site as popular, but that's not likely. We could also infer popularity from the fact that his articles got published in book form, but some people would accuse us of OR. Al 15:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Joel on Software (weblog) gets, according to itself, 7 million visitors a month. Google gets 36 million hits. It is significant, but I don't know how to back it up without a statistics site. It may be worth noting that several CEOs and companies have replied to issues raised in his weblog (for example by the Groove CEO). He is also co-founder of notable FogCreek. He certainly has industry recognition. fel64 00:04, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

How hard is it to get his google ranking and whatnot? Mathiastck 23:31, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

His blog is #82 on Technorati, with 4,240 blogs linking to it in the last 180 days. [2] Alexa.com ranks it 3,127 with over 5,000 inbound links and something like 18 million daily pageviews. [3] . A quick Google search [4] offers the following third-party proclamations of popularity: [5] [6] [7] [8] —Wrathchild ^(talk) 20:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Merge

Joel on Software (weblog) should be merged into Joel Spolsky. --Elonka 18:33, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this article will fall under it's own weight otherwise.--Grimboy 00:08, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Al 15:29, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

• No merge. Joel on Software (weblog) is as different, say, as a TV personality to their TV show. Joel Spolsky should deal with his life; the weblog article should deal with the ideas there. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fel64 (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure there's enough material to justify both. Al 05:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for not signing my comment earlier - I'm not used to it yet, I guess. There might not be enough yet, but they are distinct and capable of being two valid articles. I reckon it's worth keeping. fel64 14:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I think a merge is a good idea. There's not enough information about the weblog to justify its own article. Maerk 13:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the merge. Why don't we merge the Coen Brothers with The Big Lebowski? It's the same thing, right? Guinness man 06:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

An emacs user, no?

I added him to Category:Emacs users because it seems that Emacs is his primary text editor. I'm basing this on multiple "In emacs, I'm always hitting C-z accidentally" and similar statements. If someone can find a reference where he says "My primary text editor is Emacs", please add it to the article. Or if his primary text editor is not emacs, please remove the category tag, and add a reference here if possible. Gronky

Thanks for your extremely valuable work. Fatalis 20:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 17:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)