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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. With notability being the issue, opinions are roughly divided numerically, but several later opinions have mentioned new sources that earlier "delete" opinions couldn't have considered, and it appears that the discussion trends towards a "keep" outcome. At the least I can't find a consensus to delete here. Elaqueate has convincingly argued why any deletion request by the subject should not be given special weight here.  Sandstein  17:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Sandy Frank

Sandy Frank (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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The subject does not meet notability criteria (though there may be confusion with a person of the same name). Though the subject's company is mentioned as being well-known, there is no real assertion of the subject's importance, so this may meet speedy deletion criteria. The article has been tagged as non-notable for a long time. Boson ( talk) 16:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply

  • Delete. Not notable, although he has an Emmy (see TP :). -- Why should I have a User Name? ( talk) 17:00, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. It's easy to neglect middlemen; yet somehow these middlemen have determined what is available to the culture at large. We should license ourselves to understand the world as more than merely consumer units. I have found a few sources like a mention in [1] that make it clear he had some meaningful historical role. Wnt ( talk) 17:24, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • My quick look suggests he probably is quite notable, however the article needs serious improvement (I see it is already improving since it was brought to the attention of Jimbo's talk page stalkers), and didn't have sufficient reference to establish notability included in the article. I suspect the issues with the article should be straightened out in a day or two, but if they aren't we may want to consider deleting it until someone is willing to put together a proper article in light of it being a BLP. I'll try to remember to come back and !vote in a couple days. Monty 845 17:38, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:26, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:26, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Appears to meet GNG. Concerned by TP accusations that Mr. Frank's representatives have been removing content from the article-- would notability be more apparent were we !voting on an article that had not been previously sanitized by editors with a CoI? betafive 05:45, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Jesus Christ, of course the article should be deleted. First of all, the article does not even come close to meeting our standards as described at WP:GNG and WP:BIO. Is there one single article about the person -- I mean about the person -- in any reasonable notable publication? There isn't.
Second of all, it's a poorly referenced WP:BLP. There are whole sections with no referencing whatsoever. These have to go. You're going to be left with a few sentences.
Third of all, suppose he did meet our notability requirements (which, again, he doesn't) he would meet them only marginally, in which case WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE comes into play (assuming that this request from a person claiming agency is on the level, which I do assume).
Fourth of all, here's one of the few reasonably reliable sources, the Entertainment section of the New York Daily News. It's used to ref the bare fact that Frank was the producer of Name That Tune, but the article title is "'Name That Tune' producer Sandy Frank sues to get engagement ring back from ex-fiancée" and the entire article is about this. No, you can't do that. If you want to make the case that EngagementRingGate is a notable event worthy of being included in this article, you can try to make that case provided you can show multiple notable and highly reliable sources (required for inflammatory material in a BLP). Absent that, no, you can't ref a anodyne fact to a source detailing inflammatory material. It's probably not done intentionally but it's too cute by half and won't stand. It won't stand at the BLP Noticeboard and let's not argue about this. We don't do this. We are better than that.
So cut out that ref. Cut out the Broadcasting ref which is to an advertisement. Cut out Horror View which I'm not sure who they are but 1) they ain't the New York Times and 2) this is a ' WP:BLP under WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE so we want very highly reliable and pretty notable sources so I doubt they qualify. Cut the YouTube video (!) used as a source which is a primary source, any other issues with it being a YouTube video aside. That leaves the International Journal of Culture Studies which is used to ref the statement "The Sandy Frank dubs are considered an early part of the heritage of animated films from Japan that eventually led to the anime boom of the 2000s". I don't know what the International Journal of Culture Studies is but we've been here 10+ years and nobody's seen them as notable enough to rate an article (unlike the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies and so forth). The ref is not online and I'd like see a demonstration that that's a proper interpretation of the source. But suppose you keep that anyway, you have one ref that presumably mentions the person in passing (if that). No article, not for any BLP and especially not for a marginal person (actually not even that) who'd requested deletion of the article.
Not really interested in the vote count here. Unless somebody can come with a whole lot better arguments for keeping the article, the person closing this has got to delete it. There's really no choice here. Herostratus ( talk) 00:44, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE isn't a deletion argument. It allows a closing admin discretion in the no-consensus case about a non-public figure. Since Sandy Frank is a public figure, albeit a minor one, it doesn't apply in this circumstance. Per http://ics.sagepub.com/, the "International Journal of Culture Studies" would appear to be a stable, if niche, scholarly publication.— Kww( talk) 01:04, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Yeah OK, it's hard to keep up with the details of all the rules. I think you're supposed to sprinkle some WP:OFFICIALLOOKINGLINKS in your text to play in this league though. For WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE just substitute "guy doesn't want the article" which is the same point in civilian talk. Herostratus ( talk) 11:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Comment I don't care much if this article is kept or deleted. What I do care about is that Sandy Frank's opinion on the topic isn't taken into account. None of our policies and guidelines about requested deletions apply in this case.— Kww( talk) 01:04, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Yeah we all hear you loud and clear. There's a bigger world out there though. You never cease to be moral player on this planet, not for one second, and sitting at a keyboard does not remove you from the moral universe, nor does appealing to some policies and guidelines regardless of who issued them. Of course we don't remove articles about people who are truly notable, because that would do too much violence to our encyclopedic mission. Which is an important mission. It's important, but it's not everything or the only thing in this world. Being nice is also pretty important. If these two things are in tension we have to figure out the completing claims on us. Well, when we have a subject who is 1) alive, and 2) only marginally notable, and 3) doesn't want an article, we should listen and listen carefully. I can't make you do that but you can't stop me from doing it, and you can't stop other people from doing it either. Herostratus ( talk) 02:42, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Sorry, but I'm not feeling a moral duty here. This is not some obscure nobody; probably millions of people have at some point or another paid actual money (directly or indirectly) to view pieces of film that have his name written on them, that were edited by his decision making. You're telling me that he has a right to affect all those people, but that they have no right to know about him -- that what is in their minds pertaining to him is essentially his property, to shape and fix the way he wants. I do not accept that. And I think it is morally bankrupt, morally ridiculous, for us to have articles on a whole range of different people, that contain inconvenient facts, solely because they haven't yet come and asked us to take them down. What kind of message does that send? By comparison to this, I have much more respect in my heart for the people who vandalize Wikipedia. Wnt ( talk) 03:35, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
There's no moral duty to not have a biography of Sandy Frank, nor is there a moral duty to listen to his protestations about it.— Kww( talk) 03:38, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Actually, we do have a duty to listen to the subject; indeed, there were a few BLP type issues that some would say we have a duty to act on; but not a duty to delete the relevant information. Our duty as Wikipedians is to help people understand what his company did with these shows, how it affected what people saw, and how it figured into economy and culture. I don't know if we're going to do that duty any time soon but deleting it is the wrong direction. Wnt ( talk) 03:42, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
I stand corrected for indulging in hyperbole. We do, indeed, have an obligation to listen. When it's nothing more coherent than "I DON'T LIKE IT. MAKE IT GO AWAY", we have an obligation to ignore it.— Kww( talk) 04:03, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
I mean, yeah, OK, I understand now we're you're coming from. Perhaps I also engaged in hyperbole. It's just when that I run into the argument "Editing the Wikipedia suspends the editor's participation in the moral universe for the duration of her editing session", which you do see, it frosts me. You're not making that argument as I now see and apologies for jumping to that conclusion.
Based on your statement above I do think you maybe have an aversion to people wanting to remove (whitewash, if you will) their bios for what you consider insufficient cause. I totally would understand that because I have an aversion to the converse: unnotable people wanting to insert vanity biographies into the Wikipedia. It's not really a big deal, but I just have a personal visceral aversion to that such that it pisses me off. It's purely a personal idiosyncracy on my part though. (I mean, I can and do go especially out of my way to make strong arguments to delete vanity-type articles and am entitled to, but I realize I'm doing that because that's just the way I roll.)
Anyway, whether it's a personal idiosyncracy on your part or not, it kind of comes down to personal feeling or opinion to some degree. In cases like this I just feel "give the guy a break" IF he's really only marginally notable. Enh, the guy's 84, he's probably an OK guy but he got some notice in the papers which is maybe unhappy-making (it's not in the article now (though it's in as a ref) but nobody can guarantee that it won't go in at some point), or maybe he just wants a sense of privacy in his old age or whatever. Anyway he doesn't want the article, we don't really need it, cut the guy some slack, this is where I'm coming from. It's a reasonable thing to feel IMO.
(This informs my argument, but even if a person doesn't share this feeling I'm not withdrawing my other assertions re the person not meeting notability requirements and the Daily News ref being off base and most of the other refs being not too good and so on.) Herostratus ( talk) 11:26, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Yeah, those are OK refs, but only if we change to lede to something along the lines of "Sandy Frank is a private citizen who, in his eighties, appears to be having a rough time of it and got in the papers.[ref][ref][ref] He was an obscure television executive in the middle of the last century[detailed citations needed]."
All three of those refs go into the details of Mr Frank's career to this the level of detail: "Sandy Frank, a former television producer, was...." and that's about it. So if we're gonna use those refs, let's not pretend the article is about his television career and let's be honest with our lede. Sheesh. Herostratus ( talk) 16:11, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Sarcasm aside, it seems you are acknowledging that refs show notability, and then pointing at problems which can be solved by editing, not deletion. Thus you are actually saying we have to keep the article per our deletion policy.-- cyclopia speak! 16:54, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
I'm pretty sure there's nothing in our deletion policy that requires us to keep articles that are sourced to, as you put it, "mostly gossipy coverage". There is, however, this policy, which says: "Biographies of living persons ("BLP"s) must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid." and "Avoid repeating gossip. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject." and "Editors should make every effort to act with kindness toward the subjects of biographical material when the subjects arrive to express concern." 28bytes ( talk) 17:28, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Thanks for reminding, but this has little to do with the article existence.-- cyclopia speak! 19:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Well but it does, because you can't use those sources. So you have an insufficiently ref'd BLP. "Pointing at problems which can be solved by editing" does not, actually, include changing the lede to open with "Sandy Frank is a private citizen who, in his eighties, appears to be having a rough time of it and got in the papers". We can't actually have articles with ledes like that. And if we're not going to do that we aren't going to use those refs. So having a BLP with insufficient refs to support an actual article is reason for deleting. Yeah you could stub it... in theory. I'm not finding any actual usable refs at all that even indicate that this person actually exists and was a television producer (there are enough unreliable or unusable refs that I'm confident that it's almost certainly true, but that's way not good enough for a contended BLP), so I'm not even seeing a stub here. Even if you could ginny up a stub, that's worse than nothing because 1) stubs on unnotable people have even less encyclopedic value than articles on unnotable people, and 2) the existing stub is just a time bomb and attractive nuisance for people to put back in inflammatory material, so you have a net negative value to the encyclopedia, not even considering 3) he asked us to remove it. No article here. Herostratus ( talk) 19:55, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
The first two refs are marginal, but the third is an extremely relevant and interesting link. The fact is, right here we find Sandy Frank deciding what kind of media is going to be produced and shown to perhaps millions of people --- and a government using arbitrary criteria to pay him to make this kind of show but not that kind of show. Censorship is usually not as blatant as the outright prosecution; we see here the state controllers behind the scenes. Definitely worth keeping now. Wnt ( talk) 10:15, 14 August 2014 (UTC) reply
It is interesting. There's three interesting things in it: 1) State governments give tax breaks for media productions, which I already knew, but which is a debatable and contentious policy which is worth writing about, 2) Michigan does, but not for game shows which it would be interesting know the reason for that (maybe because they don't spend much money) and 3) they apparently have a definition of "game show" which is rather nebulous which that could be problematic. Subsidies of American media production could be an interesting article, maybe, and this ref could be used there. It can be used here too, it's a usable ref. That's all it is, you could add a sentence about the lawsuit (although failed lawsuits, which this one very probably was, aren't that notable). It's not core to the article but it's a perfectly fine ref for its purpose, without telling the reader much about Sandy Frank. Herostratus ( talk) 23:28, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Merge into List of film producers. There's a few refs out there (New York Daily News (Despite the potentially inflammatory content of the webpage used to reference a clearly non-inflammatory fact) and Hollywood Reporter (as mentioned by Cyclopia) being two), but it'll probably remain a stub with just a list of what he's directed. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 01:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I'm not sure that I buy into the argument that Sandy Frank is an unknown, obscure producer. There are plenty of hits on the Google News Archive and Highbeam Research. For example, [5] and [6]. I'm usually a pretty reliable "delete" voter, especially on articles where the subject has requested deletion, but this is different. We're not talking about someone who made the news for a questionable publicity stunt or youthful indiscretions. This is a Hollywood producer with a notable career. If he finds the article distasteful, he can always propose changes on the talk page. I am open to such a dialogue. I reject Wnt's argument of "we have a right to know", and I would suggest that it be discounted by the closer. This should be decided by notability, not politically-charged rhetoric. NinjaRobotPirate ( talk) 02:49, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
My argument is meant to refute the implication by others that the abundant sources about him somehow don't count because he was "behind the scenes" rather than in front of the camera. But if you don't believe my assertion of notability, consider this 2011 press release by his lawyer: [7]
"Sandy Frank, a legendary entertainment industry icon, pioneer, and innovator, is well known throughout the entertainment industry for his shows, “Name That Tune,” “Battle of the Planets,” “You Asked For It,” and many other television programs and productions. With over five decades in creation, production, and syndication in television and film, he is the most successful and longest running privately-owned syndication business in the world. In addition to selling programming into syndication and broadcast prime time in the United States, he has sold, syndicated and/or otherwise distributed his television and film properties throughout the world, in over one hundred (100) separate and distinct countries worldwide. Frank was among the first to have the foresight and genius to buy and transform Japanese animation, bringing Japan’s “Gatchaman” to the English-speaking world as “Battle of the Planets.”
Wnt ( talk) 12:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
"If you don't believe me, read this press release" is not a very strong argument... Herostratus ( talk) 21:47, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
If it's a reliable source, then it's a very strong argument. This appears to be from a self-published source though, so I'm not sure how it holds up. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 22:14, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
You're "not sure" how it holds up? Sheesh, if you're "not sure" how that holds up, what would it take to find a source that you would be sure would not hold up? A person yelling on the subway? Laundry tags? WP:GUYINBAR? You could get the editor of an actual reliable source to print that if you kidnapped his daughter, maybe. Herostratus ( talk) 02:30, 16 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Okay, so my understanding about how press releases fit into WP:SPS and WP:RS is a little murky; all I was doing was refuting your argument about how reading a ref isn't a good argument. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex
Self-published sources do NOT add to notability, just to be clear. 03:45, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, OK, sorry Supernerd11. Sometimes when these discussions go on for a while I fall into being a bit snarky, a weakness I try to work on but will probably never completely overcome. And I apologize for that uncalled-for level of snark and appreciate your cool and measured response. Yes of course we're all trying to figure these things out and we never stop learning. And of course these are debatable issues.
I would say that as a general rule press releases make very poor sources, even if they're published in usually-somewhat-reliable sources. Press agents are always trying to get their releases in the paper, and sometimes they succeed. I had a case a while back of a newspaper, it was just a local small-town paper but as a real newspaper generally assumed to have some reliability. Well they published an "article" but further investigation revealed that what they had done was publish a press release, unedited and presumably without vetting it. And the claim was made that since it was in a newspaper it was a usable source.
But it doesn't work like that. There's no magic bullet such that getting published in venue X automatically confers reliability to some material. Publications can be reliable for some things and in some cases and unreliable for other things and cases. It's complicated. Any press releases are not considered likely to be accurate because they're inherently self-serving. They might be accurate about some facts but that's not their reason for existing. It's complicated here too, because press releases simply detailing an anodyne fact -- "For Immediate Release, from North American Veblefetzer: Bob Smith was appointed General Manger of the Widgit Division today" -- are usually OK if not contested, because there's no reason for North American Veblefetzer to lie about that or spin it and they're not likely to be wrong about it.
However, the press release we're talking about is shot through with statements of opinion and peacock terms so even any statements of fact are dubious since the entire thing is clearly self-serving.Iit's not usable, even it it had somehow slipped by the editor an actual newspaper. That it's in a self-published source is so much the worse but it wouldn't be usable in any case. Herostratus ( talk) 13:52, 16 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Notability is not inherited. The game shows are notable, and beyond that, an article about Frank would be more or less a copy paste of articles about the same shows, with little to no other content, particularly as the articles only mention him briefly. Non notable person. If the article is kept, then it should be stubbed and only the information pertinent to his career should be included, and the irrelevant stuff from his personal life removed. We're an encyclopedia, not the National Enquirer. Kindzmarauli ( talk) 20:08, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Sources identified by User:NinjaRobotPirate clearly establish notability. Comments calling for deletion, made prior to their post, should be treated accordingly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:39, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Well not really. User:NinjaRobotPirate gave us two refs. Let's look at them.
The first is from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, a reasonably notable paper. There's the dateline "Hollywood" so it's presumably from a stringer or service, but there's no byline nor attribution to a press service such as UPI or Reuters. The material, unlike most of the refs, goes beyond a mere mention of Frank. Here's the relevant material in its entirety. The bolding is mine to point out some passages, it is not in the original.
"Even in an industry not known for its high level of taste, producer Sandy Frank has to win this season's award for Tacky Taste -- for the blatant way it which he's attempting to cash in on the assassination of Anwar Sadat to hype interest in his proposed TV film on the Egyptian leader's life. While details of Sadat's slaying were still coming in two weeks ago, Frank was undertaking a hard-sell media campaign aimed at bringing attention to the product he's unsuccessfully tried to peddle to the networks since 1979. And while world leaders were still gathered in Cairo to attend Sadat's funeral, Frank was trying to feed me additional details on the project. It was a brief conversation. As soon as I conveyed my feelings about his actions, I got off the phone."
Well let's see. How can we use this reference?
  • We can't quote from it. There's no byline! (There are other reasons, but that'll do.)
  • We can't use it to ref a statement like "Frank had a project for a film on Anwar Sadat but it was never made" (even if the source was reliable, which of course it's on a different planet from reliable) because we don't get down in the weeds about stuff like that... we don't even know if there was a script or whatever. A proposed film that was never made might be OK for the articles on Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese, but even for them probably only if it got fairly well along.
  • We can't use to to ref a statement like "Frank is vulgar, for instance he attempted to cash in on the assassination of Anwar Sadat to promote a proposed film on Sadat's life". Right? I hope that's clear. Nor can we weasel around that with a statement like "Some commentators have claimed that Frank is vulgar, for instance he attempted to cash in on the assassination of Anwar Sadat to promote a poposed film on Sadat's life". The commentor's anonymous, and even if we dig up his name he presumably lacks standing (notability, expertise) to be considered "some commentator" for our purposes: "some commentators" can't include forum posts or your Uncle Dwight for the same reason.
So, you know, what good is this ref? It isn't any good. (Amusingly, you can infer that Frank initiated the call (!) and we know for sure that the reporter gave Frank flack about the project (!!) and then the reporter terminated the call (!!!). Heh. Some reporting! Such professional, much reliable. So Frank got the number of some D-list flack who didn't have a secretary to screen his calls and was desperate for copy because no real people will talk to him (if that, maybe he just heard about the project and made up the phone call for effect). So what? Piling on unusable refs is not helpful.
The other ref is Variety which is of course highly notable. Again, my bolding. The copy is:
"Distributor Sandy Frank ('Name That Tune') is looking to romance the US syndication marketplace for the first time in recent memory with the dating/game strip 'Lovers or Liars'... With so few opportunities these days for an indie unaligned with a station group to launch a syndie show, 35-year-old Sandy Frank Entertainment has steered its product toward international distribution over the years..." (The rest is behind a paywall.)
Again, some proposal that AFAIK never got off the ground. (Here's he's just a distributor rather than the producer, except I think to be a distributor you have to actually distribute stuff.) How are you going to use this ref? You can't use this ref. "Sandy Frank tried to get a show called 'Lovers or Liars' distributed but nobody would return his calls", maybe? Is the article about Frank in any meaningful way? It's not. Variety is notable and (I assume) reliable, so the ref can be used, but probably only to ref the statement "Frank was a distributor". Piling on they-mentioned-his-name refs like this does help round out the References section, but it can't be the core of the References section. Herostratus ( talk) 23:09, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep He's noted as a key figure in bringing Japanese animation to North America. This is one book from Palgrave Macmillan with four pages outlining his initial involvement. (I don't think it's been mentioned by any other editor here at this point.) He seems to be frequently mentioned in other histories of that time period. Notability is not the same thing as general fame, and he seems to have been a noted TV producer, for different shows and genres in different time periods. He's not an unknown, and he received press and book coverage for different aspects of his career, whether anime distribution or the new tax credit push. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:56, 16 August 2014 (UTC) reply
    I added some of the material from the book, more can be added from other book sources (I don't see much in the above discussion about his coverage in books; I don't know why people forget to look there so often). Beyond the secondary coverage, just one look at his own company's biography of him, should convince anyone that the subject is not seeking to keep a low public profile, nor that he is ashamed of his career accomplishments, nor that he considers himself to have a single reason to be considered notable. He seems just as proud of his Battle of the Planets work as the academic books, the bio asserts that his game show work was of significance to him. WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE is only for low-profile, non-public individuals. Being considered "low profile" is completely off the table for someone sending out self-publicizing press releases as recently as June 2014. In this May 2014 press release, the first words are Sandy Frank, it quotes Sandy Frank extensively, and it ends with an invitation to contact Sandy Frank if you need any more information about Sandy Frank. Not a subject trying to avoid the public. __ E L A Q U E A T E 00:14, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Fair point. Not compelling, since having a bio on one's website or whatever is not proof that one wants or expects to be or should be immortalized here. But I'd be interested to hear from the subject's agent, who has posted to Wikipedia, about the reasons for Mr Frank's desire to not have an article. It's one thing if the reason is "I want privacy" and another if "I prefer to control how I am presented in the media and since I can't do that here I'd rather have no article at all". If it's the latter then we're going to be a lot less receptive. I'll ask him. Herostratus ( talk) 01:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
The subject's employee talked about reasons here. __ E L A Q U E A T E 01:46, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
And this is the same Sandy Frank who attempted to sue the Internet Archive over hosting public domain material here. __ E L A Q U E A T E 01:54, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Wants the page removed "for business reasons" is what his agent said. Hmmmm, that could just be a kind of filler verbiage type thing, but if you take it literally, it would weaken his standing to have us take into consideration his request to have the page removed quite a bit IMO. I mean, it's not written in our rules, but for my part I'd treat quite differently "I want my page removed because I'm not a public figure and just want privacy" from "I want my page removed for business reasons". If it's the latter, so what, really.
Well, let's see. We're still getting new sources (which is a useful outcome of these discussions) and if enough of them are useful, and now with his motivation being called into question, I'd have to say in all fairness that deletion arguments are getting a lot weaker... Herostratus ( talk) 13:58, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
More sources about his prominence in early television distribution: [8] [9] [10]. I haven't worked anything into the article from them yet. I think there are more things offline than online for this subject, but he's treated as significant by his peers in published accounts, which speaks to WP:ANYBIO's The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field. __ E L A Q U E A T E 15:54, 17 August 2014 (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.
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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. With notability being the issue, opinions are roughly divided numerically, but several later opinions have mentioned new sources that earlier "delete" opinions couldn't have considered, and it appears that the discussion trends towards a "keep" outcome. At the least I can't find a consensus to delete here. Elaqueate has convincingly argued why any deletion request by the subject should not be given special weight here.  Sandstein  17:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC) reply

Sandy Frank

Sandy Frank (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)
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The subject does not meet notability criteria (though there may be confusion with a person of the same name). Though the subject's company is mentioned as being well-known, there is no real assertion of the subject's importance, so this may meet speedy deletion criteria. The article has been tagged as non-notable for a long time. Boson ( talk) 16:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply

  • Delete. Not notable, although he has an Emmy (see TP :). -- Why should I have a User Name? ( talk) 17:00, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. It's easy to neglect middlemen; yet somehow these middlemen have determined what is available to the culture at large. We should license ourselves to understand the world as more than merely consumer units. I have found a few sources like a mention in [1] that make it clear he had some meaningful historical role. Wnt ( talk) 17:24, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • My quick look suggests he probably is quite notable, however the article needs serious improvement (I see it is already improving since it was brought to the attention of Jimbo's talk page stalkers), and didn't have sufficient reference to establish notability included in the article. I suspect the issues with the article should be straightened out in a day or two, but if they aren't we may want to consider deleting it until someone is willing to put together a proper article in light of it being a BLP. I'll try to remember to come back and !vote in a couple days. Monty 845 17:38, 11 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:26, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Television-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:26, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Actors and filmmakers-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 01:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. Appears to meet GNG. Concerned by TP accusations that Mr. Frank's representatives have been removing content from the article-- would notability be more apparent were we !voting on an article that had not been previously sanitized by editors with a CoI? betafive 05:45, 12 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. Jesus Christ, of course the article should be deleted. First of all, the article does not even come close to meeting our standards as described at WP:GNG and WP:BIO. Is there one single article about the person -- I mean about the person -- in any reasonable notable publication? There isn't.
Second of all, it's a poorly referenced WP:BLP. There are whole sections with no referencing whatsoever. These have to go. You're going to be left with a few sentences.
Third of all, suppose he did meet our notability requirements (which, again, he doesn't) he would meet them only marginally, in which case WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE comes into play (assuming that this request from a person claiming agency is on the level, which I do assume).
Fourth of all, here's one of the few reasonably reliable sources, the Entertainment section of the New York Daily News. It's used to ref the bare fact that Frank was the producer of Name That Tune, but the article title is "'Name That Tune' producer Sandy Frank sues to get engagement ring back from ex-fiancée" and the entire article is about this. No, you can't do that. If you want to make the case that EngagementRingGate is a notable event worthy of being included in this article, you can try to make that case provided you can show multiple notable and highly reliable sources (required for inflammatory material in a BLP). Absent that, no, you can't ref a anodyne fact to a source detailing inflammatory material. It's probably not done intentionally but it's too cute by half and won't stand. It won't stand at the BLP Noticeboard and let's not argue about this. We don't do this. We are better than that.
So cut out that ref. Cut out the Broadcasting ref which is to an advertisement. Cut out Horror View which I'm not sure who they are but 1) they ain't the New York Times and 2) this is a ' WP:BLP under WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE so we want very highly reliable and pretty notable sources so I doubt they qualify. Cut the YouTube video (!) used as a source which is a primary source, any other issues with it being a YouTube video aside. That leaves the International Journal of Culture Studies which is used to ref the statement "The Sandy Frank dubs are considered an early part of the heritage of animated films from Japan that eventually led to the anime boom of the 2000s". I don't know what the International Journal of Culture Studies is but we've been here 10+ years and nobody's seen them as notable enough to rate an article (unlike the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies and so forth). The ref is not online and I'd like see a demonstration that that's a proper interpretation of the source. But suppose you keep that anyway, you have one ref that presumably mentions the person in passing (if that). No article, not for any BLP and especially not for a marginal person (actually not even that) who'd requested deletion of the article.
Not really interested in the vote count here. Unless somebody can come with a whole lot better arguments for keeping the article, the person closing this has got to delete it. There's really no choice here. Herostratus ( talk) 00:44, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE isn't a deletion argument. It allows a closing admin discretion in the no-consensus case about a non-public figure. Since Sandy Frank is a public figure, albeit a minor one, it doesn't apply in this circumstance. Per http://ics.sagepub.com/, the "International Journal of Culture Studies" would appear to be a stable, if niche, scholarly publication.— Kww( talk) 01:04, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Yeah OK, it's hard to keep up with the details of all the rules. I think you're supposed to sprinkle some WP:OFFICIALLOOKINGLINKS in your text to play in this league though. For WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE just substitute "guy doesn't want the article" which is the same point in civilian talk. Herostratus ( talk) 11:40, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Comment I don't care much if this article is kept or deleted. What I do care about is that Sandy Frank's opinion on the topic isn't taken into account. None of our policies and guidelines about requested deletions apply in this case.— Kww( talk) 01:04, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Yeah we all hear you loud and clear. There's a bigger world out there though. You never cease to be moral player on this planet, not for one second, and sitting at a keyboard does not remove you from the moral universe, nor does appealing to some policies and guidelines regardless of who issued them. Of course we don't remove articles about people who are truly notable, because that would do too much violence to our encyclopedic mission. Which is an important mission. It's important, but it's not everything or the only thing in this world. Being nice is also pretty important. If these two things are in tension we have to figure out the completing claims on us. Well, when we have a subject who is 1) alive, and 2) only marginally notable, and 3) doesn't want an article, we should listen and listen carefully. I can't make you do that but you can't stop me from doing it, and you can't stop other people from doing it either. Herostratus ( talk) 02:42, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Sorry, but I'm not feeling a moral duty here. This is not some obscure nobody; probably millions of people have at some point or another paid actual money (directly or indirectly) to view pieces of film that have his name written on them, that were edited by his decision making. You're telling me that he has a right to affect all those people, but that they have no right to know about him -- that what is in their minds pertaining to him is essentially his property, to shape and fix the way he wants. I do not accept that. And I think it is morally bankrupt, morally ridiculous, for us to have articles on a whole range of different people, that contain inconvenient facts, solely because they haven't yet come and asked us to take them down. What kind of message does that send? By comparison to this, I have much more respect in my heart for the people who vandalize Wikipedia. Wnt ( talk) 03:35, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
There's no moral duty to not have a biography of Sandy Frank, nor is there a moral duty to listen to his protestations about it.— Kww( talk) 03:38, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Actually, we do have a duty to listen to the subject; indeed, there were a few BLP type issues that some would say we have a duty to act on; but not a duty to delete the relevant information. Our duty as Wikipedians is to help people understand what his company did with these shows, how it affected what people saw, and how it figured into economy and culture. I don't know if we're going to do that duty any time soon but deleting it is the wrong direction. Wnt ( talk) 03:42, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
I stand corrected for indulging in hyperbole. We do, indeed, have an obligation to listen. When it's nothing more coherent than "I DON'T LIKE IT. MAKE IT GO AWAY", we have an obligation to ignore it.— Kww( talk) 04:03, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
I mean, yeah, OK, I understand now we're you're coming from. Perhaps I also engaged in hyperbole. It's just when that I run into the argument "Editing the Wikipedia suspends the editor's participation in the moral universe for the duration of her editing session", which you do see, it frosts me. You're not making that argument as I now see and apologies for jumping to that conclusion.
Based on your statement above I do think you maybe have an aversion to people wanting to remove (whitewash, if you will) their bios for what you consider insufficient cause. I totally would understand that because I have an aversion to the converse: unnotable people wanting to insert vanity biographies into the Wikipedia. It's not really a big deal, but I just have a personal visceral aversion to that such that it pisses me off. It's purely a personal idiosyncracy on my part though. (I mean, I can and do go especially out of my way to make strong arguments to delete vanity-type articles and am entitled to, but I realize I'm doing that because that's just the way I roll.)
Anyway, whether it's a personal idiosyncracy on your part or not, it kind of comes down to personal feeling or opinion to some degree. In cases like this I just feel "give the guy a break" IF he's really only marginally notable. Enh, the guy's 84, he's probably an OK guy but he got some notice in the papers which is maybe unhappy-making (it's not in the article now (though it's in as a ref) but nobody can guarantee that it won't go in at some point), or maybe he just wants a sense of privacy in his old age or whatever. Anyway he doesn't want the article, we don't really need it, cut the guy some slack, this is where I'm coming from. It's a reasonable thing to feel IMO.
(This informs my argument, but even if a person doesn't share this feeling I'm not withdrawing my other assertions re the person not meeting notability requirements and the Daily News ref being off base and most of the other refs being not too good and so on.) Herostratus ( talk) 11:26, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Yeah, those are OK refs, but only if we change to lede to something along the lines of "Sandy Frank is a private citizen who, in his eighties, appears to be having a rough time of it and got in the papers.[ref][ref][ref] He was an obscure television executive in the middle of the last century[detailed citations needed]."
All three of those refs go into the details of Mr Frank's career to this the level of detail: "Sandy Frank, a former television producer, was...." and that's about it. So if we're gonna use those refs, let's not pretend the article is about his television career and let's be honest with our lede. Sheesh. Herostratus ( talk) 16:11, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Sarcasm aside, it seems you are acknowledging that refs show notability, and then pointing at problems which can be solved by editing, not deletion. Thus you are actually saying we have to keep the article per our deletion policy.-- cyclopia speak! 16:54, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
I'm pretty sure there's nothing in our deletion policy that requires us to keep articles that are sourced to, as you put it, "mostly gossipy coverage". There is, however, this policy, which says: "Biographies of living persons ("BLP"s) must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a tabloid." and "Avoid repeating gossip. Ask yourself whether the source is reliable; whether the material is being presented as true; and whether, even if true, it is relevant to a disinterested article about the subject." and "Editors should make every effort to act with kindness toward the subjects of biographical material when the subjects arrive to express concern." 28bytes ( talk) 17:28, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Thanks for reminding, but this has little to do with the article existence.-- cyclopia speak! 19:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Well but it does, because you can't use those sources. So you have an insufficiently ref'd BLP. "Pointing at problems which can be solved by editing" does not, actually, include changing the lede to open with "Sandy Frank is a private citizen who, in his eighties, appears to be having a rough time of it and got in the papers". We can't actually have articles with ledes like that. And if we're not going to do that we aren't going to use those refs. So having a BLP with insufficient refs to support an actual article is reason for deleting. Yeah you could stub it... in theory. I'm not finding any actual usable refs at all that even indicate that this person actually exists and was a television producer (there are enough unreliable or unusable refs that I'm confident that it's almost certainly true, but that's way not good enough for a contended BLP), so I'm not even seeing a stub here. Even if you could ginny up a stub, that's worse than nothing because 1) stubs on unnotable people have even less encyclopedic value than articles on unnotable people, and 2) the existing stub is just a time bomb and attractive nuisance for people to put back in inflammatory material, so you have a net negative value to the encyclopedia, not even considering 3) he asked us to remove it. No article here. Herostratus ( talk) 19:55, 13 August 2014 (UTC) reply
The first two refs are marginal, but the third is an extremely relevant and interesting link. The fact is, right here we find Sandy Frank deciding what kind of media is going to be produced and shown to perhaps millions of people --- and a government using arbitrary criteria to pay him to make this kind of show but not that kind of show. Censorship is usually not as blatant as the outright prosecution; we see here the state controllers behind the scenes. Definitely worth keeping now. Wnt ( talk) 10:15, 14 August 2014 (UTC) reply
It is interesting. There's three interesting things in it: 1) State governments give tax breaks for media productions, which I already knew, but which is a debatable and contentious policy which is worth writing about, 2) Michigan does, but not for game shows which it would be interesting know the reason for that (maybe because they don't spend much money) and 3) they apparently have a definition of "game show" which is rather nebulous which that could be problematic. Subsidies of American media production could be an interesting article, maybe, and this ref could be used there. It can be used here too, it's a usable ref. That's all it is, you could add a sentence about the lawsuit (although failed lawsuits, which this one very probably was, aren't that notable). It's not core to the article but it's a perfectly fine ref for its purpose, without telling the reader much about Sandy Frank. Herostratus ( talk) 23:28, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Merge into List of film producers. There's a few refs out there (New York Daily News (Despite the potentially inflammatory content of the webpage used to reference a clearly non-inflammatory fact) and Hollywood Reporter (as mentioned by Cyclopia) being two), but it'll probably remain a stub with just a list of what he's directed. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 01:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. I'm not sure that I buy into the argument that Sandy Frank is an unknown, obscure producer. There are plenty of hits on the Google News Archive and Highbeam Research. For example, [5] and [6]. I'm usually a pretty reliable "delete" voter, especially on articles where the subject has requested deletion, but this is different. We're not talking about someone who made the news for a questionable publicity stunt or youthful indiscretions. This is a Hollywood producer with a notable career. If he finds the article distasteful, he can always propose changes on the talk page. I am open to such a dialogue. I reject Wnt's argument of "we have a right to know", and I would suggest that it be discounted by the closer. This should be decided by notability, not politically-charged rhetoric. NinjaRobotPirate ( talk) 02:49, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
My argument is meant to refute the implication by others that the abundant sources about him somehow don't count because he was "behind the scenes" rather than in front of the camera. But if you don't believe my assertion of notability, consider this 2011 press release by his lawyer: [7]
"Sandy Frank, a legendary entertainment industry icon, pioneer, and innovator, is well known throughout the entertainment industry for his shows, “Name That Tune,” “Battle of the Planets,” “You Asked For It,” and many other television programs and productions. With over five decades in creation, production, and syndication in television and film, he is the most successful and longest running privately-owned syndication business in the world. In addition to selling programming into syndication and broadcast prime time in the United States, he has sold, syndicated and/or otherwise distributed his television and film properties throughout the world, in over one hundred (100) separate and distinct countries worldwide. Frank was among the first to have the foresight and genius to buy and transform Japanese animation, bringing Japan’s “Gatchaman” to the English-speaking world as “Battle of the Planets.”
Wnt ( talk) 12:31, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
"If you don't believe me, read this press release" is not a very strong argument... Herostratus ( talk) 21:47, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
If it's a reliable source, then it's a very strong argument. This appears to be from a self-published source though, so I'm not sure how it holds up. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex 22:14, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
You're "not sure" how it holds up? Sheesh, if you're "not sure" how that holds up, what would it take to find a source that you would be sure would not hold up? A person yelling on the subway? Laundry tags? WP:GUYINBAR? You could get the editor of an actual reliable source to print that if you kidnapped his daughter, maybe. Herostratus ( talk) 02:30, 16 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Okay, so my understanding about how press releases fit into WP:SPS and WP:RS is a little murky; all I was doing was refuting your argument about how reading a ref isn't a good argument. Supernerd11 Firemind ^_^ Pokedex
Self-published sources do NOT add to notability, just to be clear. 03:45, 16 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, OK, sorry Supernerd11. Sometimes when these discussions go on for a while I fall into being a bit snarky, a weakness I try to work on but will probably never completely overcome. And I apologize for that uncalled-for level of snark and appreciate your cool and measured response. Yes of course we're all trying to figure these things out and we never stop learning. And of course these are debatable issues.
I would say that as a general rule press releases make very poor sources, even if they're published in usually-somewhat-reliable sources. Press agents are always trying to get their releases in the paper, and sometimes they succeed. I had a case a while back of a newspaper, it was just a local small-town paper but as a real newspaper generally assumed to have some reliability. Well they published an "article" but further investigation revealed that what they had done was publish a press release, unedited and presumably without vetting it. And the claim was made that since it was in a newspaper it was a usable source.
But it doesn't work like that. There's no magic bullet such that getting published in venue X automatically confers reliability to some material. Publications can be reliable for some things and in some cases and unreliable for other things and cases. It's complicated. Any press releases are not considered likely to be accurate because they're inherently self-serving. They might be accurate about some facts but that's not their reason for existing. It's complicated here too, because press releases simply detailing an anodyne fact -- "For Immediate Release, from North American Veblefetzer: Bob Smith was appointed General Manger of the Widgit Division today" -- are usually OK if not contested, because there's no reason for North American Veblefetzer to lie about that or spin it and they're not likely to be wrong about it.
However, the press release we're talking about is shot through with statements of opinion and peacock terms so even any statements of fact are dubious since the entire thing is clearly self-serving.Iit's not usable, even it it had somehow slipped by the editor an actual newspaper. That it's in a self-published source is so much the worse but it wouldn't be usable in any case. Herostratus ( talk) 13:52, 16 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Delete Notability is not inherited. The game shows are notable, and beyond that, an article about Frank would be more or less a copy paste of articles about the same shows, with little to no other content, particularly as the articles only mention him briefly. Non notable person. If the article is kept, then it should be stubbed and only the information pertinent to his career should be included, and the irrelevant stuff from his personal life removed. We're an encyclopedia, not the National Enquirer. Kindzmarauli ( talk) 20:08, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep Sources identified by User:NinjaRobotPirate clearly establish notability. Comments calling for deletion, made prior to their post, should be treated accordingly. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:39, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Well not really. User:NinjaRobotPirate gave us two refs. Let's look at them.
The first is from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, a reasonably notable paper. There's the dateline "Hollywood" so it's presumably from a stringer or service, but there's no byline nor attribution to a press service such as UPI or Reuters. The material, unlike most of the refs, goes beyond a mere mention of Frank. Here's the relevant material in its entirety. The bolding is mine to point out some passages, it is not in the original.
"Even in an industry not known for its high level of taste, producer Sandy Frank has to win this season's award for Tacky Taste -- for the blatant way it which he's attempting to cash in on the assassination of Anwar Sadat to hype interest in his proposed TV film on the Egyptian leader's life. While details of Sadat's slaying were still coming in two weeks ago, Frank was undertaking a hard-sell media campaign aimed at bringing attention to the product he's unsuccessfully tried to peddle to the networks since 1979. And while world leaders were still gathered in Cairo to attend Sadat's funeral, Frank was trying to feed me additional details on the project. It was a brief conversation. As soon as I conveyed my feelings about his actions, I got off the phone."
Well let's see. How can we use this reference?
  • We can't quote from it. There's no byline! (There are other reasons, but that'll do.)
  • We can't use it to ref a statement like "Frank had a project for a film on Anwar Sadat but it was never made" (even if the source was reliable, which of course it's on a different planet from reliable) because we don't get down in the weeds about stuff like that... we don't even know if there was a script or whatever. A proposed film that was never made might be OK for the articles on Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese, but even for them probably only if it got fairly well along.
  • We can't use to to ref a statement like "Frank is vulgar, for instance he attempted to cash in on the assassination of Anwar Sadat to promote a proposed film on Sadat's life". Right? I hope that's clear. Nor can we weasel around that with a statement like "Some commentators have claimed that Frank is vulgar, for instance he attempted to cash in on the assassination of Anwar Sadat to promote a poposed film on Sadat's life". The commentor's anonymous, and even if we dig up his name he presumably lacks standing (notability, expertise) to be considered "some commentator" for our purposes: "some commentators" can't include forum posts or your Uncle Dwight for the same reason.
So, you know, what good is this ref? It isn't any good. (Amusingly, you can infer that Frank initiated the call (!) and we know for sure that the reporter gave Frank flack about the project (!!) and then the reporter terminated the call (!!!). Heh. Some reporting! Such professional, much reliable. So Frank got the number of some D-list flack who didn't have a secretary to screen his calls and was desperate for copy because no real people will talk to him (if that, maybe he just heard about the project and made up the phone call for effect). So what? Piling on unusable refs is not helpful.
The other ref is Variety which is of course highly notable. Again, my bolding. The copy is:
"Distributor Sandy Frank ('Name That Tune') is looking to romance the US syndication marketplace for the first time in recent memory with the dating/game strip 'Lovers or Liars'... With so few opportunities these days for an indie unaligned with a station group to launch a syndie show, 35-year-old Sandy Frank Entertainment has steered its product toward international distribution over the years..." (The rest is behind a paywall.)
Again, some proposal that AFAIK never got off the ground. (Here's he's just a distributor rather than the producer, except I think to be a distributor you have to actually distribute stuff.) How are you going to use this ref? You can't use this ref. "Sandy Frank tried to get a show called 'Lovers or Liars' distributed but nobody would return his calls", maybe? Is the article about Frank in any meaningful way? It's not. Variety is notable and (I assume) reliable, so the ref can be used, but probably only to ref the statement "Frank was a distributor". Piling on they-mentioned-his-name refs like this does help round out the References section, but it can't be the core of the References section. Herostratus ( talk) 23:09, 15 August 2014 (UTC) reply
  • Keep He's noted as a key figure in bringing Japanese animation to North America. This is one book from Palgrave Macmillan with four pages outlining his initial involvement. (I don't think it's been mentioned by any other editor here at this point.) He seems to be frequently mentioned in other histories of that time period. Notability is not the same thing as general fame, and he seems to have been a noted TV producer, for different shows and genres in different time periods. He's not an unknown, and he received press and book coverage for different aspects of his career, whether anime distribution or the new tax credit push. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:56, 16 August 2014 (UTC) reply
    I added some of the material from the book, more can be added from other book sources (I don't see much in the above discussion about his coverage in books; I don't know why people forget to look there so often). Beyond the secondary coverage, just one look at his own company's biography of him, should convince anyone that the subject is not seeking to keep a low public profile, nor that he is ashamed of his career accomplishments, nor that he considers himself to have a single reason to be considered notable. He seems just as proud of his Battle of the Planets work as the academic books, the bio asserts that his game show work was of significance to him. WP:BLPREQUESTDELETE is only for low-profile, non-public individuals. Being considered "low profile" is completely off the table for someone sending out self-publicizing press releases as recently as June 2014. In this May 2014 press release, the first words are Sandy Frank, it quotes Sandy Frank extensively, and it ends with an invitation to contact Sandy Frank if you need any more information about Sandy Frank. Not a subject trying to avoid the public. __ E L A Q U E A T E 00:14, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Fair point. Not compelling, since having a bio on one's website or whatever is not proof that one wants or expects to be or should be immortalized here. But I'd be interested to hear from the subject's agent, who has posted to Wikipedia, about the reasons for Mr Frank's desire to not have an article. It's one thing if the reason is "I want privacy" and another if "I prefer to control how I am presented in the media and since I can't do that here I'd rather have no article at all". If it's the latter then we're going to be a lot less receptive. I'll ask him. Herostratus ( talk) 01:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
The subject's employee talked about reasons here. __ E L A Q U E A T E 01:46, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
And this is the same Sandy Frank who attempted to sue the Internet Archive over hosting public domain material here. __ E L A Q U E A T E 01:54, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
Wants the page removed "for business reasons" is what his agent said. Hmmmm, that could just be a kind of filler verbiage type thing, but if you take it literally, it would weaken his standing to have us take into consideration his request to have the page removed quite a bit IMO. I mean, it's not written in our rules, but for my part I'd treat quite differently "I want my page removed because I'm not a public figure and just want privacy" from "I want my page removed for business reasons". If it's the latter, so what, really.
Well, let's see. We're still getting new sources (which is a useful outcome of these discussions) and if enough of them are useful, and now with his motivation being called into question, I'd have to say in all fairness that deletion arguments are getting a lot weaker... Herostratus ( talk) 13:58, 17 August 2014 (UTC) reply
More sources about his prominence in early television distribution: [8] [9] [10]. I haven't worked anything into the article from them yet. I think there are more things offline than online for this subject, but he's treated as significant by his peers in published accounts, which speaks to WP:ANYBIO's The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field. __ E L A Q U E A T E 15:54, 17 August 2014 (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.
Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Sandy_Frank&oldid=1146674535"

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