Talk:Leonard H. Tower Jr.

TOCright

Moved TOCright discussion to User_talk:Lentower. - Lentower 21:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Contributions to FSF and GNU

I think the current stub version underrepresents by complete omission Len's programming contributions to the FSF and the GNU projects. I'm not competent to evaluate the primary sources that I did find, and we generally should not use primary sources until they have been evaluated in the secondary literature. I didn't happen to stumble across any such secondary sources while wading through the swamp of google hits. GRBerry 17:11, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Might I suggest perhaps quoting the primary sources which you did find here? They could serve as reference to help guide further research (and someone with some more insight in the field could take a closer look at them as well). Capi 18:01, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Some references for improving the article

I am copying this comment from the article's AfD, to serve as references for improving the article (I would add to the article myself but am pressed for time right now). Feel free to add more references as you find them, of course:

Comment Just a few notability references I came up with, concerning Tower's role as a speaker for the FSF and general involvement in the FOSS community:

• GNU Bulletin Vol 1, no 1 - Introduces Tower as GNU's #2 man, after Stallman. Mentions Tower (in section "4. C Compiler") as being responsable for the task of redesigning and fully rewriting GCC (one of (if not the) most notable and widely recognized compilers worldwide), which was in its infancy at the time.
• Usenet hits for Tower speaking on GNU and FSF-related BOFs (Birds of a Feather, discussion groups) - Tower was often the spokes-person for GNU and/or FSF (e.g. USENIX, Sun User Group Conference, etc)
• GNU Bulletin Vol 1, no 7 - Tower part of FSF board of directors
• Official AUTHORS file for GNU diff - Tower and 4 others created GNU diff
• GCC docs, Contributors section - Leonard Tower wrote parts of the parser, RTL generator, and RTL definitions, and of the Vax machine description.
• Ghits for Tower and FSF or GNU, excluding most of the bulletins

Capi 14:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

http://google.com/codesearch?q=%22Len+Tower%22

http://google.com/codesearch?q=%22Len+Tower%22 will turn up a few more things I worked on. I'll leave it up to others to maybe look and consider editing the article. - Lentower 22:29, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

USENIX

Wasn't Len an official (quasi-official?) liaison between the FSF and USENIX at some point? The number of people who attended his USENIX talks ought to establish his notability beyond any question, if only there was some documentation... maybe someone has a photo? LossIsNotMore 06:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Found and added sources. LossIsNotMore 08:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Another source for A-phi-O and The Tech

If need be. LossIsNotMore 08:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Also really poorly formatted proof that he was a Business Manager at MIT's The Tech newspaper. LossIsNotMore 09:12, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Added both; well, found the PDF counterpart to the 2nd. LossIsNotMore 11:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

GA failed

1. Well written? Fail

2. Factually accurate? Pass

3. Broad in coverage? Fail

4. Neutral point of view? Pass

5. Article stability? Pass

6. Images? Fail

Additional comments :

• Len is an avid cyclist and pedestrian who has never owned a car is not really useful to the reader in a lead section.
• The article is not broad enough.
• This article brings elements in the lead that are not to be seen elsewhere in the article.

Although the article is well-referenced, not enough material and not enough coverage is done of that subject rendering the article too short. Good luck on expanding, Lincher 12:10, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

:: I just uploaded a photo I took of Len in 2008:

--Dwchin (talk) 00:37, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Another source

• http://www.enotes.com/topic/Leonard_H._Tower,_Jr.

Here is another source. --DThomsen8 (talk) 01:59, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

That's just an old version of this article. strcat (talk) 02:33, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Anyone want to do serious work on this article?

WP:AUTO seriously discourages me from working on this article about me. The language there is considerably stricter than when I did work on this article years ago.

I'm also too busy.

If anyone has the time, I could give some pointers to sources over time. Hunting down real paper sources is a lot of it. Visits to research libraries, etc. Lentower (talk) 21:40, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Careful what you wish for. [1] Msnicki (talk) 18:24, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Computer programmer or activist

The lede in this article declares that Tower is a computer programmer. But the only programming he appears to have done was on gcc and diff ca. 1986-1988. Outside of that brief period, I can find no evidence that he did any significant programming, even after scouring the search results Tower himself suggested earlier on this page.

Tower's main responsibility at FSF was administrative, not programming, consistent with the fact that he came to them with a degree in biology, not in computer science or an allied field such as electrical engineering or math and with his previous volunteer experience working on the administrative rather than creative aspects of his college newspaper. His work on gcc is described as working on parts of things and implementing the ideas of others. It sounds like these were junior tasks where Stallman probably figured out the design and laid out the pattern and a few examples and then turned it over to Tower to keep turning the crank. Similarly, diff was an implementation of someone else's algorithm. In both cases, other people on the team were obviously stronger contributors. That's especially true on gcc but also true with diff; in addition to Stallman on that team also, there was Haertel, who also wrote grep and did in fact go on to a serious career in software. [2] There's no evidence that Tower ever started a project from a clean sheet of paper, did a complete product (even just a single utility) all by himself, led a design or that he invented any novel algorithms or techniques.

Following that short period of working on gcc and diff, it appears Tower spent the rest of his career back on administrative tasks and as an activist, e.g., going to USENIX, etc., to spread FSF's views about free software, patents and look-and-feel lawsuits.

Going up in a plane a few times with an instructor does not make you a pilot. You still have to solo (among other things.) Continuing the metaphor, Tower never soloed and it's not clear he even got back in the plane.

This is why I believe the evidence supports describing Tower as an activist who also contributed to gcc and diff rather than primarily as a computer programmer. Msnicki (talk) 09:37, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

• As someone who worked at the FSF 1996-2002, I think I would agree that Len was not primarily important as a programmer by then, although he did do a fair amount of work on the FSF's internal software and systems, at a time when running it all - an office, servers, firewalls, etc. - on totally free software was somewhat on the cutting edge. But Len was an FSF director, he was a stand-in for Stallman as an FSF representative when Stallman was unavailable, inappropriate, or downright unwelcome, and he did a lot of volunteer work. (Naturally, none of this is usable in the article, this is not a published source, but consider it deep background...)Brianyoumans (talk) 01:47, 6 October 2011 (UTC)
• If you click through the activist link, you get a bunch of black and white photos of protest marches; that doesn't look like the right word. I looked at advocate and that's primarily about being a barrister, but advocacy looks like a plausible compromise. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 04:12, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

You want protest demonstrations? Okay, they did those, too, e.g., picketing Rob Pike's talk at MIT in 1991 (though Tower didn't happen to make the cut as a "prominent" member of the League for Programming Freedom that day.) Some of Rob Pike's comments about Stallman and his call for protestors to show up with "a sign, even an el-cheapo sign, to identify yourself as part of the protest" are pretty funny. Msnicki (talk) 04:55, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

sigh

so, what I observe, is that after two unsuccessful requests for deletion, the editor who advocated solo for deletion (on notability grounds) is now reducing the article to a series of perfectly proper, WP:WL edits all scrupulously backed by references.

I would be cautious that we look at WP:BLP here, especially

BLPs should be written responsibly, cautiously, and in a dispassionate tone, avoiding *both understatement and overstatement*.

and

Wikipedia contains biographical material on people who, while notable enough for an entry, are not generally well known.

and

Administrators who suspect malicious or biased editing, or believe that inappropriate material may be added or restored, may protect or semi-protect pages in accordance with the protection policy.

and

The Arbitration Committee has ruled in favor of showing leniency to BLP subjects who try to fix what they see as errors or unfair material.

I (a non-notable person) would certainly not want a wiki admin repeatedly editing my biography, especially an editor who had advocated previously that I was unnotable.

Edward Vielmetti (talk) 06:05, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

and, if you compare the current husk of an article to the 2006 version, you'll realize that 5 years worth of edits have all been headed backwards for the quality of the prose, the interestingness of the biographical information presented, and the notability of the subject of the article in reference to the events of the time. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 06:32, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

These are just some of many reasons why you would never see me (setting aside that I'm anonymous here) creating my own WP:AUTO page as happened here. And if, God forbid, such a page showed up anyway, I certainly wouldn't post an invitation for anyone to add more stuff. I think the essay, "An article about yourself is nothing to be proud of", totally nails it.
Re: the previous AfDs, those were in 2006. I didn't join until 2006 and I certainly wasn't participating in AfDs back then. And if you actually go look, you'll see it was a split decision even then. The outcome of the first AfD was delete. That was DRVed and the second AfD was closed as keep but there were a lot of WP:JUSTAVOTE keeps at the end. I nominated the article for deletion on good faith: I did search for secondary sources to establish notability and I'm convinced they simply do not exist. Also, though this wasn't a reason to delete, I knew enough to know it wasn't WP:NPOV.
Okay, well, consensus went against me at AfD. Others seem satisfied he's notable and the subject himself seems happy for the attention, so okay, now the job is to make the article the best we can, meaning it will no longer be hagiographic but it will be sourced and WP:NPOV, exactly as the essay explains. I can't speak to the "interestingness" of the information; the historical record just is whatever it is. Msnicki (talk) 06:59, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

q.e.d. Edward Vielmetti (talk) 02:15, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Canvassing

It appears we now have some canvassing going on. [3] [4] The subject apparently thinks I'm a big meanie; he and anyone else with similar concerns are asked to read the essay, WP:PROUD. If you would like to discuss this article and its content, this talk page is the place to do it. Msnicki (talk) 07:27, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

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