Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grant Neufeld

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 of the debate was keep. Mindmatrix 15:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Grant Neufeld

Non-notable, non-elected politician, vanity. Delete -- Spinboy 01:39, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Previous afd's at vote 1, vote 2, vote 3

Bad faith nomination. User:Spinboy nominated this article twice before one ending in "no consensus", the other in "keep". Nothing has changed since then and he presents no new arguments that would change the outcome. Furthermore, there is a policy discussion on this subject at Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Legislative candidates on this topic of electoral candidates, past and present, where a new argument for deleting this article could emerge. The centralized discussion is not intended to be in this afd. --maclean25 05:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• • • A bad article is a bad article, regardless of precedent. Spinboy thinks it doesn't belong: do you have any reason to doubt his sincerity or are you just throwing mud? --Calton | Talk 07:10, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Sorry, it appears I got a little distracted by the legislative candidates part of it. However, I called it bad faith because it just appears that he has a vendetta against Grant Neufeld aka User:GrantNeufeld, as well as Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew McLauchlin aka User:Montrealais (although it is difficult to determine his stance). His only edits to the page have been to tag it but has done nothing to address the issue in the talk page. All the attempts to delete...just looks like he is out for blood. Wouldn't have been an issue if any of the other (how-many)thousands of other users would have put it up for deletion. Let me know if you think I'm "just throwing mud". --maclean25 08:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Uh huh. And your reasons for believing he has a "vendetta" is what, exactly? --Calton | Talk 00:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
          • Ok, maybe the above comment was a little too confusing. So, in case you genuinely don't understand, and not just playing dumb, here is an outline of my rationale in a more simpler step-by-step format, all of which was taken directly from the links provided in the previous statement:

1. User:Spinboy attempts three times to delete Grant Neufeld [1], [2], [3]
2. unsuccessful, User:Spinboy tags the article as {{Unencyclopedic}}, {{OriginalResearch}}, {{POV check}} but does not participate in the talk page is discussion on the tags (only User:GrantNeufeld does)
3. User:Spinboy leaves Wikipedia on Oct 27.
4. User:Spinboy comes back stating "Oh, I'm not staying. I'm still extremely pissed off. I just saw something that cried out for an afd nomination, and I couldn't do that without logging on. I seriously dislike the hypocracy around here, one of many reasons I left." (refering to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew McLauchlin aka User:Montrealais)
5. Several days after his return he posts this afd with the same rationale as the last vote "Non-notable, unencyclopedic, vainity. Delete. --Spinboy 23:55, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)"

He returned to put up an afd on User:Montrealais (and none of the other dozen-odd other Canadian legislative candidates). While back he couldn't resist kicking this article one more time. Do you understand how this is can be interpreted as malice? --maclean25 05:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

So, in case you genuinely don't understand, and not just playing dumb I've noticed that bad writers often try to shift the blame for the confusion, ambiguity, and mystery they cause by insulting their readers. But you wouldn't know about that, would you?

Do you understand how this is can be interpreted as malice? Sure -- if you start off assuming malice.

Quitting in disgust and coming back is proof of what? Well, that he got over it. If this is suspicious behaviour, I'll work up a (long) list for you of shady characters for you to watch, including User:Ta bu shi da yu

I like the reasoning, though: he's nominating this for deletion for a third fourth time because he has a vendetta. The proof he has a vendetta? The fact that he's nominating it for a third time. Why is he nominating it for a third fourth time? Because he has a vendetta. Rinse, lather, repeat.

And the fact that he nominated this and not others proves what, exactly? It's a slight variation of the bogus rationale offered by hundreds of voters in past AfDs: namely, the whine "if the Pokemon/one-horse town/trivial-in-my-opinion-subject article stays, so should mine": the appropriateness of this nomination has bugger all to do with other lack of nominations. If this (in your view) double standard upsets you, give me a list of other candidate articles, those running on the No-Hope Party ticket in the Riding of BFN that, gosh darn it, Spinboy should have nominated for deletion and I'll do the job myself: I've got some time to kill right and I can get right on it. Though be quick, I'm leaving in half-an-hour.

Maybe Spinboy has nominated this article for deletion because he thinks Neufeld doesn't rate an encyclopedia article? Yes, standards in an encyclopedia -- that's just crazy talk! As far as I'm concerned, if Mr. Neufeld wants free publicity for himself, he ought to check out MySpace or Geocities.

In case you genuinely don't understand what I wrote, let me know and I'll use smaller words. --Calton | Talk 07:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

No personal attacks, please. Ground Zero | t 16:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• I don't want to drag this on, I think we both made our points, but I just want to clarify something. I just realized where you got the circular "Rinse, lather, repeat" argument from. The five points above are not five individual arguments, that is, point 1 is not by itself a complete argument. They are a chronological list of events that ended in this afd, that is to say, one argument leading to the conclusion. --maclean25 11:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• • I seriously resent that. I'm allowed just like everyone else to make afd nominations. If you're going to be a jerk, be it somepalce else. I left because of jerks like you, and I will be leaving again. -- Spinboy 06:02, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Note: Just a point of clarification - this article wasn't posted as an "electoral candidate" article (although I have been one). The reasons given for 'notability' were my roles as president of the Green Party of Alberta, and founder of the Revolutionary Knitting Circle (laugh if you want, but we've got chapters on two continents and have had mainstream media coverage on three - I'm most proud of my interviews in Interweave Knits and Vogue Knitting :-). --GrantNeufeld 05:11, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - Started by subject, edited by subject, not notable as he has not been elected. This is vanity and lacks the ability to have a NPOV with Mr. Neufeld's involvement in it. FullSmash26 05:52, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • He shouldn't be editing his own article. -- Spinboy 06:07, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
    • It's obvious that I disagree with that view. I think that folks with direct knowledge of a subject should be contributing to the articles here. I'd see a serious problem if they were the only ones working on the articles, but the presence of "many eyes" on Wikipedia balances off any POV issues that such contributors may create. I've contributed to a lot of articles on Wikipedia where I'm not "at arms length" (such as the Green Party of Alberta), and provided detailed references when questions have been raised (such as on the article being debated here). In any case, the previous two votes on this article have not found my auto-biographical contributions to be sufficient cause for deletion. As to the imposibility of auto-biographical NPOV, I encourage you to review the comments from Earl Andrew, Kevintoronto and gord on the article's talk page as counterpoints to that view. --GrantNeufeld 07:04, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
      • It's obvious that I disagree with that view. Whether you disagree with it is utterly immaterial, since this isn't your website, and your blatant self-interest/vanity/self-promotion/whichever doesn't trump long-standing policy. --Calton | Talk 07:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I wasn't aware that a formal policy against any auto-biographical contributions had been established. I know there's a general discouragement against it - but I have not heard of a prohibition being adopted. --GrantNeufeld 07:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
          • Comment That is because there is no such policy. In fact during the recent debacle regarding Mr. Seigenthaler many people were critical of him because he did not simply change the innaccuracy himself and instead made a big deal out of it. It seems people desire to have it both ways on the autobiographical issue. Vanity is bad but people are far more capable of reasoned self appraisal then some seem to think. — Falerin^{<talk>,<contrib>} 18:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
            • Wikipedia:Autobiography: to baldly state that ... there is no such policy without acknowledging these clear guidelines is playing a bit fast and loose with your rhetoric.
            • To baldly state that there is no such policy is absolutely correct precisely because that document is NOT policy and is a guideline. In addition the document itself does not even forbid the practice but defines why it is ill advised. And yet Jimbo is clearly shown to edit his own article with regularity. — Falerin^{<talk>,<contrib>} 19:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

• From the intro: Wikipedia has gone through many prolonged disputes about the significance, factual accuracy and neutrality of such articles, including one about Jimmy Wales himself. Refraining from autobiographical editing is therefore important in maintaining Wikipedia's neutral stance and in avoiding the appearance of POV pushing. --Calton | Talk 00:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

• Just like last time, I say delete. Still non-notable, still gross vanity, and still should go -- at best -- to user space or MySpace.

So what is it with the Canadian election? Suddenly it seems every no-hoper-party candidate for every one-horse riding in Canada thinks they deserve an article on Wikipedia. --Calton | Talk 07:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Delete Sounds too much like vanity to me. As per anon user above, this is more appropriate material for a user page. Comment Regarding the repeated nominations, in the absence of a policy or guideline I think Spinboy is within his rights to nominate this again, although it does seem to be abuse of a loophole. Zunaid 07:33, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - Grant is the president of an active provincial party and an Alberta Centennial Medal recipient. Reviewing the articles for other political parties in Alberta shows that most of the leaders (elected or not) have articles as well. Grant should probably refrain from editing his own article however, to prevent the accusations of vanity. -Dr Haggis - Talk 07:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Absolutely. And note to GrantNeufeld, usually when coming up for a vote, instead of attacking your opponents, you might want to try to prove why people should vote for you. Just for the future. Flyboy Will 07:55, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm sorry that you perceive my responses to other comments here and points of information to be "attacking". I'm not interested in flaming anyone (even though there are some significant disagreements here - disagreement does not have to mean disrespect). Please review my comments above again—I believe on close examination they can be seen to be talking specifically to the issues, and are not 'attacks' on any of the participants in this discussion. --GrantNeufeld 16:03, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, President of Alberta Greens, candidate in Alberta general election, 2004) and founder (in 2000) of the first Revolutionary Knitting Circle (now an international activist movement). are claims which make this individual notable in my view. People are allowed to edit articles about themselves as long as they remain neutral and while starting your own article is frowned upon, there's nothing forbidding you to do so. Anyway, neither of these are reason to delete an article. - Mgm|^(talk) 09:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. That this has survived earlier discussion is astonishing: execrable self-promoting vanity page of an insignificant that heavily exaggerates asserted notbaility. The organisation which the subject has founded, Revolutionary Knitting Circle should also be brought to AfD as inherently unnotable as well. Perhaps other Canadians here can chime in on having heard of it or not, but so far my running tally is 0. I find maclean's suggestion that this is a bad faith nomination hard to fathom. A badly self-authored page that is nothing more than a funnel for an out-of-control ego should not be on WP; bringing it up for nomination is a perfectly good thing to do. Eusebeus 12:49, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep. Mildly notable as the president of the Green Party in Canada. -- MisterHand 17:09, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Except he's not, Jim Harris is [4]. The provincial party got 24,588 votes in 2004, 2.75% overall but no seats, making them #5 in the league tables. --Calton | Talk 00:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Clarification: Jim Harris is leader of the Green Party of Canada, Bruce Abel is president. --GrantNeufeld 18:51, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Also clarification: Wikipedia has a clear precedent that leading figures in a political party within a defined political entity, even if that political entity is the provincial or state level, merit articles regardless of the party's electoral success, on "because they're party leaders" grounds. Bearcat 05:58, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, barely notable, but he is a Green Party President.Gateman1997 18:09, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep The president of the Green Party in Canada is indeed notable and so is the Revolutionary Knitting Circle — Falerin^{<talk>,<contrib>} 18:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Except he's not, Jim Harris is [5]. --Calton | Talk 00:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Jim Harris isn't the president of the party either. Perhaps you misunderstand Canadian political party structures. "President" is a position within the political party's internal structure, who's responsible for running the organization. It's rarely, if ever, the same person as the party's candidate for Prime Minister (who gets termed "leader", but is not actually the top authority in the party structure.) Bearcat 05:58, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep If this article has survived two votes already why the heck must we have a third!? Wiki should have a policy of no renomination for deletion IMHO. Jcuk 19:00, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Although the article is poor and contains a lot of trivialities, the guy is the pres of the Green Party. --NormanEinstein 21:19, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Of Alberta, not Canada. --Calton | Talk 00:31, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. -- JJay 04:28, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Nothing has changed since the previous nominations. Grant Neufeld's edits since APril 2005 have been to add a picture and categories. Nothin POV or vanity going on here. Ground Zero | t 14:50, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep' I don't see it as POV (although it is a bit heavy on the vanity front). I also think that the repeated nominations for deletion will eventually cause it to be deleted, if only because the ones seeking to have it deleted will keep coming back, but the people voting keep will eventually move on assuming that once the vote was settled, it was settled. I don't see how an article can be nominated for deletion after passing an AfD vote and the article not changing significantly. (unsigned vote by GordonBonnar, 16:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC))
  • I have revised the article to remove the vanity aspect and make it more encyclopedic. In previous communications that I have had with Grant Neufeld, he has indicated that he understands and accepts that other editors will revise the article. This is no longer a "vanity article". As far as future attempts to delete this, if this attempt fails, it will be clear that future attempts will be bad faith nominations. Ground Zero | t 16:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - Mildly notable politician. The last AFD was a keep, and the precident stands. The only time a keep should be overturned, is if it was based on information that turned out to be false and/or unverifiable; or else if there was some kind of failure in process. The nominator shouldn't just keep redoing AFD's till they get what they want. Far to many articles and AFDs go without attention, because AFDs are clogged with these unfounded nominations. Note: if this article hadn't survived a prior AFD, it would have been entirely justified to nominate as this is a "week keep" level person. --Rob 16:17, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep: this is WP:POINT. Stifle 02:10, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

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.