Rich Shapero ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( XfD| restore)

Closing admin appeared to ignore WP:GNG in favour of much stricter guidelines including the largely irrelevant WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:EVENT. Only two three users supported deletion (of whom one is currently the subject of an SPI case), while another who had initially felt the same later moved to Keep with the comment that the user working to improve the article "has provided the necessary references to show his notoriety". Four other users also supported retaining the article. The close argued that the delete !votes were better grounded in policy, but neither linked to a policy while one Keep comment did and another linked to relevant sources which appeared to prove that WP:GNG was met. Alzarian16 ( talk) 10:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

See comment I just posted on this. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 11:30, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Comment I agree that that it wasn't closed in a proper way and that WP:NOT#NEWS and WP:EVENT are irrelevant in this case (since "Notability does not directly affect the content of articles, but only their existence"), but I wouldn't say that the closing admin ignored GNG. He did however interpret it in a much stricter fashion than the editors in this AfD (including me) did and when it comes to more subjective judgements like that I think the case needs to be much stronger for a close that goes against the majority view. Pax:Vobiscum ( talk) 12:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

That's probably a fairer assessment of the close than mine, as looking at it again I suppose GNG wasn't really ignored but just interpreted in an unusually strict way. You are certainly correct about strength of policy arguments when the close doesn't agree with the majority view, and I felt the case wasn't strong enough. I should also add that since I made this nomination I've discovered that one of the two supporters of deleting the article, User:Canals86966, is currently the subject of an SPI which looks fairly likely to be closed with a block. Alzarian16 ( talk) 12:31, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Comment I was the editor that originally listed the article for deletion (and am not the one being investigated). At the time of listing the article had little content but as the discussion progressed the article moved towards focusing on the failure as an author. At the end of discussion I still felt that 'signficant coverage' under GNG was not strong (One article in SF Chron [ [1]] & a few in student publications), but think this is an odd case, as the person's notability is actually based on their lack of notability. Clovis Sangrail ( talk) 12:47, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Sorry, I forgot about you when writing my rationale (the other one I was referring to was User:Starblind). I've changed it to say three now. Alzarian16 ( talk) 13:37, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Looks like a defective debate rather than a defective close, to me. In the closer's defence, none of the cited sources seem reliable so we have what is effectively an unsourced BLP. This does place an onus on the closer to delete. Nevertheless, the debate was defective in three respects: first, that the participants failed to notice that Shapero's book Wild Animus belongs at RfD; second, that the majority of opinions expressed were not in accordance with the applicable policies and guidelines, so even though we have a prima facie "keep" consensus, that consensus is simply wrong; and third, that the debate failed to properly consider alternatives to deletion. WP:BEFORE says that alternatives should be exhausted before a deletion takes place, so a redirect or merge outcome ought to have been discussed. The big benefit of redirecting, in these cases, is that we don't leave behind a redlink that encourages an inexperienced user to write an article, so I'm personally in favour of redirection as the default way of dealing with non-notable people. However, there's no obvious redirect target.

  On balance I'm minded to send it back to AfD for a fuller discussion that takes proper account of all the relevant policies and guidelines, comes to the correct conclusion (i.e. that Shapero does not merit an article), considers where it could be redirected to, and then leads to a proper redirection or deletion.— S Marshall ^Talk/ _Cont 14:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• I think the debate may have been skewed a little due to the article changing rapidly as it went on. The article originally appear to be an autobiography / promo page which had been pruned down by editors to only a few lines of text - which is the article I tagged (the pruning may have been how the wild animus page was orphaned). As the afd debate progressed the article changed to one which focussed on notability due to the Rich's promotional actions rather than him as a author musician. I think this moving target probably confused the debate a little. I not sure whether relisting will result in a more policy driven debate; I think it may be more about whether the author meets GNC. Clovis Sangrail ( talk) 14:42, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• It seems to me that what is notable, if anything, is the failed marketing campaign around the book. would it make sense to add a sentence on this campaign at Undercover marketing, with sources, and make both wild animus and rich shapero redirects to this article? i participated in the afd, and edited the article a while back, but despite my keep vote, i do recognize that this may not be quite notable enough, though some notability has now been shown. its definitely open to interpretation, and i would not say it was a broken afd, but probably an incomplete debate, so i would support sending both to RFD. Mercurywoodrose ( talk) 16:51, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• Relist. There was clearly no consensus to delete and no demonstrated policy-based reason requiring deletion. By saying policy-based I emphasize that the GNG is a guideline not a policy, unlike WP:BLP or WP:NOTNEWS. In that context the community's views should have been followed. However the commentary above in this DRV shows that another AfD is warranted in very short order. If we think the debate was defective we ought to relist rather than second-guess the proper outcome. -- Mkativerata ( talk) 20:45, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• Overturn and relist for further debate The debate in the AfD was clearly not full enough to have a clear decision. If one was forced to decide, the consensus (and weakness of the Delete votes on not citing any policy or having a strong rationale) would definitely lean toward Keep. It seems to me that the closing admin disagreed with consensus and closed the debate based on their own opinion, which closing admins are not supposed to do, they are supposed to interpret the consensus, yes, but not make up their rationale based on something that would fit more in a Delete vote than in a closing statement. I suggest that the AfD is relisted for further debate and study so that a more clear consensus can be formed. Silver seren ^C 20:47, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• (after edit conflict) Overturn. The closing admin claimed that the "the delete views seem to be well grounded in Wikipedia policies and guidelines". Let's have a look at what those supporting deletion said:

1. No evidence of notability. Page appears to have been a vanity page which has been reduced down to almost nothing. Prod tag has been removed under promotion, and under notability
2. No evidence of notability. Sources require verification of credibility. One reference is self-published. Prod-2 tag removed without reason and without notifying editor.
3. author with only one book, and it's self-published.

"Appearing" to be a vanity page, being reduced to almost nothing, prod tags being removed, one reference being self-published and the subject being the author of one self-published book are all ungrounded in Wikipedia policies and guidelines as reasons for deletion. All that we are left with is the question of whether the available sources are sufficient to demonstrate notability, and there was certainly no consensus in the discussion that they are insufficient, so this should have been a "keep", "no consensus" or "relist", but certainly not a "delete". Phil Bridger ( talk) 20:59, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Overturn When searching for the proper name of the book, along with the name of the author, I find plenty of sources. [2] 13 reliable news sources talk about this. Thus its notable. Dream Focus 22:24, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Overturn because of an incorrect closing. (FWIW, I do not necessarily think him notable). The closing admin used an incorrect standard "historic notability", which is not supported by the wording of WP:N. It would be a much higher standard, amounting very nearly to famous. WP:NOT uses the phrase "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events" which is much less than "historic" -- nor does it ever say that people who do not have enduring notability can not be fit subject to an article, just that WP "considers" this factor. The closing admin is welcome to his own personal restrictive view of WP:N, but has no right to impose it on the community. DGG ( talk ) 22:31, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Overturn and relist at editor's discretion (see my comment a long way below). One of the main topic headings of our main notability guideline is that notability is not temporary, i.e. as long as coverage at the time is significant enough it doesn't matter if notability is transitory. Given that part of the closing admin's rationale was "None of the respondents in this discussion have actually shown any strong evidence of non-transient historical notability," I feel this has to be overturned as whether it is non-transient or not is irrelevant. I also agree with the above comments about the standard "historic notability" not being grounded in policy (see below again). Finally, and possibly most importantly, I also agree with another comment above that the closing comment sounds more like an argument than a discussion of how the admin read consensus and so the admin should have commented with that argument rather than closed. Dpmuk ( talk) 10:24, 16 May 2010 (UTC) reply
• Overturn The close was too opinionated, overriding the discussion which did not conclude in a proper consensus for deletion. Colonel Warden ( talk) 18:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Closing admin comment: Most evidence claimed to exist didn't actually support the claims made, when checked. AFD is not a vote. The views stated have to be backed up with evidence that supports them. In this case a careful review suggested otherwise. This was further underlined by the fact that just one genuinely reliable, independent, substantial, evidentiary source was cited in the entire discussion, and that one was not coverage of the BLP subject but of the unusual launch of his book (a transient event with no other evidence at AFD to suggest the event was notable per WP:EVENT). AFD closes must reflect policy based points and be backed up with evidence. Numbers alone aren't enough.

Details of the AFD participants' views and the evidence problems I found, are below. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 01:33, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Details of claims and issues at AFD (by Closer)

The views for delete, and the views for keep, both hinged on the quality of sources and whether they showed notability. Views for keep pointed to the number of links on Google News (eg User:Dream Focus) and similar reliable source coverage. Views for delete stated those sources were insufficiently reliable or insufficiently good evidence. As AFD is not a vote, one job of the closing admin is to assess the strength of the arguments presented (not just the number of !votes) to try and understand which views in line with policies and guidelines best represent community consensus. However..... there was a serious problem with the evidence claims. While Google News does indeed show some 50 mentions of the subject over an extended time period, a closer look shows all but 2 - 4 of those 50 are not capable of evidencing notability in the sense of WP:N. The vast majority are press statement spokesmanship, due to the fact that company statements are usually given by (or attributed to) some kind of senior employee or director as spokesperson. The fact X is a spokesperson on some occasions for a company does not make X personally notable. If Google News is stripped of mentions of the form "<press release> says Rich Shapero, a partner with Crosspoint Venture Partners", or "...managing partner at..." etc then it's clear that users relying on a general assertion of "lots of Google News entries" needed to look at those entries' quality as evidence. In most cases it didn't and couldn't evidence notability. (Eg, the releases could have been issued by anyone else in a sufficiently senior role, they don't speak of him personally). The other area of coverage cited was minor and related to his book, but a book release is a transient issue, and the notability guideline discusses brief media mentions related to a single event or news matter. Even the cites in the article show the same problem - there are 7 references, but look at what they show: his employee page on his employer's website, 3 reviews of his book (including one from Publisher's Weekly) and 3 articles from college magazines. When Google was stripped of non-evidentiary mentions (press releases and the like) the sole coverage seems to be this handful of reviews or mentions of his book. While a majority of AFD views stated "keep", AFD is not a vote. Those keep views needed to be backed up with evidence that Shapero himself has obtained significant coverage in independent reliable sources, and the closing admin must satisfy him/herself that the claims do stack up and the evidence presented does exist and is good evidence. I reviewed the evidence presented for keep, and the case was not being made by the AFD evidence or article citations. Despite the claims, almost no valid coverage were actually identified by participants; they generally alluded to claims about Google News that were not backed up by evidence, and just one reliably sourced discriminate reviews was actually identified - and that was related to a non-notable event of a transient nature (issue of his self pub book). A pure count of views is not as important as good support for good arguments. Claims need their evidence. The latter was lacking at AFD. BLP also raises an overriding concern (as one person notes above): we can't write a bio article without sufficient reliably sourced significant coverage to ensure NPOV. Hence, without prejudice to recreation if better evidence does turn up, I closed as delete at this time. FT2 ( Talk |  email) 01:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. It certainly helps to clarify how you arrived at the decision you did. However, I would still disagree with it for a number of reasons:

• You correctly state that comments must be backed up by evidence and that policy-based discussion is more important than vote counting. However, despite what you said in your closing statement, aside from the nomination itself not one delete vote was based on or even referenced a policy or guideline. Taking this and the votes themselves into account, there was no valid consensus to delete the article. Only two users apart from the nom supported deletion, neither based their vote on policy and one is currently under investigation for sockpuppetry.
• The strongest policy-based argument for deletion came from Mercurywoodrose but was retracted after sources were added.
• In your closing statement you cite WP:NOT#NEWS as a reason for deletion, but you also stated that most of the coverage consisted of reviews and was therefore not news-based at all. WP:EVENT has more relevance but was not used as a rationale for deletion by any voter in the AfD.
• You also mention something called "historical notability", but I can find no evidence of this wording in any relevant policy or guideline.

As such, I still feel that the case for deletion was not strong enough to justify your closure. Alzarian16 ( talk) 15:39, 18 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Overturn The arguments made above by the closer would have been great inside of the discussion. The discussion determines if the sources are sufficient, not the closing admin, which is what I feel happened in this case. The historical notability thing is particularly a concern. Hobit ( talk) 20:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Closer's comment: (@ Alzarian16 and Hobit):

1/ "Historical" or "enduring" notability has been written into core policies and guidelines for years. It's in WP:NOT: "Wikipedia considers the enduring notability of persons and events". The expression "Wikipedia considers the historical notability of persons and events" was used previously, until December 2009 [3].

2/ The closing admin's job includes assessing claims and views. The closing admin is not expected to be a "process wonk" if it is clear that there simply wasn't policy-compliant evidence presented to be reviewed. BLP also requires actual substantive, reliable, independent, neutral coverage of the subject. But nobody had linked to any of that, either.

The users in the discussion must make an evidenced and policy-based case for or against deletion. If the evidence is claimed but simply doesn't exist when checked, then a competent closing admin will not be able to agree the claims are policy based, even if they cite policy based principles. Also BLPs default to "delete" much more than most articles, if there is clear doubt as to sufficient, substantial, reliable, sourcing ability, and that's an overriding policy too. Most cited sources are college magazines and discussions of his book launch, not him.

We could be process wonks and say that the closing admin isn't "supposed" to notice or must allow stuff that contradicts policies and guidelines if enough people don't spot it. But we don't. The end result was that no cogent evidence of notability was presented and substantiated by evidence, and no evidence of sufficient satisfactory sourcing ability was provided, in a BLP AFD. As a rule in a BLP AFD, that usually means just one thing.

The community reviewed this BLP for the usual 7 days but despite a focus on sourcing, nobody had produced the kind of hard evidence needed for any other final conclusion than "delete", whether one applied WP:BLP (sufficient appropriate sourcing), WP:N (GNG evidence) or WP:NOT (the book launch as an event). FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 23:19, 18 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• And yet, despite all this reasoning, nobody so far has unequivocally endorsed the close. Of all the debate participants, many of whom are DRV regulars who are very accustomed to examining AfD closes, I believe I'm the person who's come closest to supporting you in this, but even I think it ought to be relisted. If I might be bold enough to give you advice, I do think there are two learning points for you in this, FT2.

  The first is that even for BLPs where you find a lack of notability, there are alternatives to deletion that must be exhausted before deletion can be considered.

  The second is to be a little more conscious that admins are elected to enforce consensus. There is no exception for situations where the closer believes the consensus is wrong. In such situations, where you do have good reasons to believe the consensus is erroneus, you don't need to close. Another option you had was to phrase your opinion in the form of a !vote and leave the close to others. If you had done this, the next person to examine the debate would have had considerably better grounds to close as "delete".— S Marshall ^Talk/ _Cont 10:31, 19 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I agree it seems that way, yet I believe you're mistaken on a more careful reading of deletion guidelines:

1. Admins must prioritize policy over AFD views if there is a conflict ( WP:DGFA).
2. Most responses were posted before a fuller rationale was given and could not have been written to take it into account.
3. A number of concerns were badly mistaken - including users who thought "historical notability" was an invented term and didn't recognize it as being the core policy term in use right up until very recently (now described as "enduring notability").
4. Quite a few respondents missed the BLP implications of the lack of evidence shown on careful scrutiny of the AFD views, and that WP:BLP is an overriding policy for closing admins even at deletion discussions
5. ...And that if claims of evidence at AFD turn out to be clearly flawed then the closer is not "blind" and should take note of it
6. ...And that if the AFD evidence suggests that it is unlikely an article can properly exist without breaching policy then by long-standing guidance the closer must respect policy above AFD views ( WP:DGFA).

Ultimately the closer is checking arguments for policy compliance as well - if 10 users all claim notability based on something that clearly cannot show notability, there's a policy related problem. Per Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators the exact guidance is: "Consensus is not determined by counting heads, but by looking at strength of argument, and underlying policy (if any). Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact ... are frequently discounted.... [Core] policies [which include NPOV, CITE, V, and should probably include BLP]... are not negotiable, and cannot be superseded by any other guidelines or by editors' consensus... Where it is very unlikely that an article on the topic can exist without breaching policy, policy must be respected above individual opinions."

Many responses were based upon claims of general evidence meeting policy or guidelines, where that evidence clearly does not meet policy or guidelines when carefully checked. A number of users vaguely alluded to "Google hits", which when examined were unable to substantiate notability.

I consulted last night whether I should self-overturn, close the DRV, and immediately relist at AFD. Your suggestion above (to relist and reach a fairly predictable concurring deletion on these grounds) mirrors this. But the response I got was that if the close appeared to have reached a correct result, then let it stand.

I believe the close was correct, though any close where the closer concludes most participants missed the point and policy mandates deletion will be a predictable DRV. I've therefore written as a post-event exercise, a "what if it were relisted?" analysis of the case at the AFD talk page which you might like to review. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 16:24, 19 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Good points well made, and I think that on the substance of the argument you're bang on the money. I've said that I think it was the debate that was defective rather than the close. But equally, there are counterarguments that I'm sure you're aware of.

  I've said elsewhere (probably too many times) that Wikipedian policies and guidelines are like scripture. Somewhere in the labyrinthine and self-contradictory network of rules, you can find support for any position. For example, I could make a convincing case that consensus is king on Wikipedia. I could show that there is explicit provision that a local consensus can suspend anything but a core policy in the case of one particular article. This means that as of today, an AfD could theoretically overrule WP:N and WP:BLP—though I think that in practice, unsourced negative material concerning a living person could not survive an AfD debate.

  But the main reason I feel as I do is that part of the magic of consensus is to persuade editors that there is FairProcess in decision-making on Wikipedia; in other words, good-faith editors feel that they have a voice that will be taken into account. To a certain extent that's an illusion—some views will never be given weight—but there are good reasons not to dispel that illusion too blatantly. FairProcess helps newer editors buy into Wikipedia and, perhaps, turn in the fullness of time into people who write featured content, but a lack of FairProcess will drive them away. And I'm not saying that consensus-rule is entirely an illusion, either; consensus is what creates the policies that admins enforce.

  Much of the benefit of relisting in this case is that it leaves a figleaf of consensus over the naked, Darwinian ruthlessness of notability and BLP.

  This view is often denigrated as "process wonkery" by those who advocate driving a superhighway through the winding paths and lanes of collegial discussion between interested editors, but really, it isn't. It's not to worship process, but to try to cultivate collaborative goodwill from the people who'll write tomorrow's featured content.— S Marshall ^Talk/ _Cont 18:18, 19 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I think what you're saying is that there's no need to appear to override a matter when with a bit more process and forebearance it'll be obvious anyway. If so I agree - I asked round whether to self-overturn and relist on exactly the same reasons. Still more than happy to do that if the DRV closer feels it's needed. I would however be interested to hear from those who voiced an opinion previously, what they feel now there is a clearer explanation. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 19:36, 19 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Good points, but I'm going to pick out one in particular: "Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact ... are frequently discounted". On that basis no-one voted at the AfD! So I'd say the relist proposed by S Marshall is undoubtedly a good idea. Alzarian16 ( talk) 11:16, 21 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I disagree with your analysis.

1. The user who moved to keep that you stated "has provided the necessary references" had on review not provided any such thing. There was actually no significant coverage presented from credible reliable sources to support that the man was "notorious". Claims at AFD of him having "notoriety" were extremely poorly supported. The few cites relate primarily to the book launch and the main sources were just 3 student newspaper articles, which doesn't really stand a chance of supporting the pretty big claim of "notoriety". If the man himself was "notorious" then the article would have been able to show that and users could have cited it to a range of good quality mainstream media sources etc. But nobody did.
2. Your review request gives 2 diffs but neither show anything of value. The first diff is your own AFD post. It does "name a policy" (actually a guideline, GNG) but is merely an assertion that there are "plenty of sources" (without specifying any good ones). The second diff names Google News generally but clearly never checked the links. It's a "hit count" argument, and its one specific link is again to a student newspaper. Again, 3 student news coverages related to his book launch don't show "notoriety" of the man himself.
3. In your later comment you express concern about a criterion applied ("You also mention something called 'historical notability'"). I hope you can now agree that this was a policy wording used until recently describing a core Wikipedia criterion for people and events. It was recently changed to "enduring notability" [4].
4. Claims that someone is notable due to being "notorious" (which implies it may be seen as reflecting negatively on him by some readers), has made this article a potential "negative BLP/poor sourcing" issue even if all other issues weren't a problem. That too strongly suggests deletion as an almost unavoidable conclusion.
5. The nomination claim was "non notable". On careful AFD review no evidence was presented to show otherwise. If a BLP topic is notable then suitable sources will be readily provided to show it. None were, and on closer's review I found no good evidence either. In a BLP that means just one thing.

In this unusual case the community examined the right thing (sourcing) but made defective claims and conclusions from it, as S Marshall says. But a careful review of the debate does make a fairly convincingly case that grounds for rebutting the nominator's concerns and closing as keep just didn't exist. Despite the opening of a DRV all I'm seeing is still no evidence that the correct result was not achieved. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 21:54, 21 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• This seems to be a binary position: keep, or delete. But WP:N says "These notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article" (although that sentence has been eroded over time; I wish it still appeared as I originally wrote it.) In any case, were no other options apart from "keep" or "delete" to be considered in the close?— S Marshall T/ C 00:06, 22 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Not really any valid third choice. I looked.

1. The BLP subject is apparently non-notable. There's no evidence of notability, no evidence of sources for a BLP, and the claim that the person is notability due to his "notoriety" seems unsupported or very poorly supported by evidence too.
2. Most notoriety claimed to be in relation to promotion of a (self-pub) book. The publication of book and its related promotion would be an event in Wiki terms, so I looked at whether the event (as opposed to the person) might be notable. With almost no significant sources to back up any claim of notability of the book and/or its promotional actions would likely fail the core criteria of WP:EVENT.
3. No other related topic suggested itself as a useful merge or redirect target.
4. The issue appears to be actual non-notability and failed sourcing, a situation that rewriting cannot fix.

This was a case of "views stated for keeping, but the claimed evidence and rationales were flawed and untenable when checked". Failure of evidence meant a delete close. Pick from any combination of the following, they all point to the same direction:

1. Nominator's concerns not rebutted (nobody had shown in response that the topic was notable and claims to that effect turned out to be unsubstantiated or fatally flawed in each case)
2. AFD administrator's closure norms, for cases where evidence suggests a compliant article is unsustainable (articles where it appears a policy based article can't be written should close as delete per WP:DGFA)
3. BLP default handling (default to delete in certain cases)
4. General BLP issues (BLPs that show no sign of having sufficient high quality sources about the subject so a NPOV biography could be written are deletable)
5. Unsourced/poorly sourced negative BLP issue (the main claim is that the subject is "notorious", a claim that tends to suggest he would be widely seen in a negative light and that is the basis of notability. Such articles must have high quality sources for the claims, which are lacking here, mandatory delete if that were the case)
6. Individual views at AFD cannot override policy/norms ( WP:DGFA again. Crucially, there was no chance the AFD or article evidence could show what was claimed of it or what was needed for a keep, under normal policies/guidelines).
7. Probably correct ultimate result (likelihood that a properly drafted AFD and carefully checked evidence would result in delete anyway. Opinion based on evidence submitted and seen. Without prejudice to recreation if good quality evidence/sources exist.)

FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 02:08, 22 May 2010 (UTC) reply

You are not reading WP:DGFA correctly. It says that "Where it is very unlikely that an article on the topic can exist without breaching policy, policy must be respected above individual opinions." Except you have not stated what policy the article has breached. And one of the main rules shown there is, "When in doubt, don't delete." Silver seren ^C 02:18, 22 May 2010 (UTC) reply

I think I've listed them. But will do so again. Policies that a BLP on Rich Shapero would be "very likely" to breach given the evidence at this point are BLP (both generally and perhaps negative unsourced), NOT (lack of evidence that actually speaks to subject notability where "Wikipedia considers topics' enduring notability"), the general principle that's surely in some policy or has policy-level standing that we need sufficient suitable sources to write an NPOV article before we can have an article (we don't have such sources on this individual). 3 policies straight off that make it "very unlikely" at this time. In addition at AFD the nominator felt there was not evidence of notability, and asked others to discuss that concern (that's what AFD is about), but after 7 days the claims of evidence presented were still incapable of credibly rebutting that concern and clearly failed to do so when checked. Finally the debate, being a BLP, is much less likely to default to keep. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 02:42, 22 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Comment. When I said overturn above I gave three reasons. The first one related to the "historical notability" issue. Having read what FT2 says above I can now see what he means. However the way he worded his close implies he menat something different. The mention of "historical notability" in policy was in the section in news reports and it seems pretty clear to me to mean notability doesn't come from a quick flurry of new reports. However the way the close was worded I'd take transisent to mean that and the "historical" to mean that the person needs to be discussed in say 100 years. It's clear that's not what FT2 meant but that's how I understood it and still would if I just read the close. The second related to "historical notabilty" not being in any policy. Although strictly true I can't fault FT2 for using slightly out of date terminology so I've struck the comment. However I stand by my final comment that the close sounds more like an argument than a close.

That said there's been a fair bit of debate there, so I'd suggest we overturn, make FT2's close comments into a normal comment, and instead of relisiting, ask a neutral admin to come along and close again and abide by what they do. There seems little point in enforcing another week of discussion for process sake, although of course that should be left as an option for the re-closing admin. Dpmuk ( talk) 07:54, 22 May 2010 (UTC) reply

If that were done (which is fine by me) then there's a useful "after the event" draft/summary here which might be relevant to the re-closer. But it still seems to me that the end result is unnecessarily elaborate. If there are reasonable grounds for a keep to be possible, then relist, but if it's still likely there are none or that a delete close would be the outcome, then close the DRV on that basis. Ultimately, despite the long discussion, I'm still not seeing good (or indeed any) evidence to suggest the end result and close was other than correct. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 09:27, 22 May 2010 (UTC) reply

With all due respect for your very ingenious arguments, a certain amount of self-justification is only to be expected when a senior admin's so resoundingly overturned at DRV, but there's a point at which one's analysis of the arguments in a debate strays too close for comfort to one's personal opinion on what's to be done. I think the consensus here is that your analysis would have been better expressed as a !vote. I don't agree with you when you say there were no alternatives to deletion to consider. For example, the debate might have considered whether to redirect to an entry on this list or a mention in the paragraph below it. I do think the debate was a bit too defective to safely close.— S Marshall T/ C 10:12, 22 May 2010 (UTC) reply

A redirect to an article no AFD participant suggested, that the closer hasn't heard of, not intuitively obvious from the AFD topic, and with no evidence to show it was a "best seller" (by the standards of self-publication best sellers) being presented, doesn't sound very likely. If it was a best seller according to good quality independent reliable sources then a mention in the list would be an option - but the sources don't seem to evidence that it was widely seen as a best seller, more (for those who commented) as a mass free giveaway. Claims such as "notorious" just didn't stack up according to the evidence submitted. The arguments aren't ingenious, but they are careful and as best I can tell in line with content norms and policies. FT2 ^{( Talk |  email)} 10:51, 22 May 2010 (UTC) reply

Disco Curtis ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( restore)

i think now i've successfully made this notable. if it isn't, tell me what i'm missing, and i'll make corrections. qö₮$@37 ( talk) 04:21, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply

• Speedy close. Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 May 7#Disco Curtis is still open. Cunard ( talk) 06:21, 15 May 2010 (UTC) reply