Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Seely-Gant

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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 Delete as unsourced and seeming WP:COI. Primary claim to notability is not established by reliable sources. The Xuzo article, conveniently created on 11 Nov 2006 and unattributed, fails the WP:RS test. Userfy on request. ~ trialsanderrors 23:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Seely-Gant

John Seely-Gant (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Notability (fails google test) and a vanity article evrik (talk) 16:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

  • Keep e-commerce is a big part of modern life and that makes him notable; though the article is in dire need of wikifying. Rlevse 16:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
    • No, it does not. What would demonstrate that xe is notable are cited sources to demonstrate that this person satisfies our Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies. This article cites no sources at all, and it is not enough at AFD to take an unsourced article at face value. If this person truly is the inventor of electronic commerce, sources will exist recording this. John Lake looked for sources below, using Google. Please do the same and look for sources yourself. Please actually do the research. Uncle G 19:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
      • That's why I said it needs wikified.Rlevse 19:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
        • You appear to be confused as to what wikification is. It is nothing to do with you doing the research and citing sources. Moreover, doing the research to substantiate the claims is something that you have to do yourself. Uncle G 20:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
      • I have wikified the article, and formatted about as much as I am willing to do. I still think that it is afd material. --evrik (talk) 20:51, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per submitter. I don't think the article really establishes notability. Tempshill 18:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete What we have here is a failure to establish notability, it failed google hits and the writers name is mighty similiar to the article name.--John Lake 18:57, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
    • What we have here is a failure to establish notability ← You should propose this for the next WP:BJAODN title... ~ trialsanderrors 22:13, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete as soon as possible. None of the things he claims about himself make him notable. Wavy G 19:19, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete article is a vanity article (considering the user himself submitted it) and fails to meet the standards of WP:BIO.¤~Persian Poet Gal (talk) 19:25, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete unsourced, nn notable.--Dakota 19:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Wait a minute...at least don't speedy-- I found this: "John Seely-Gant, F. Gordon Zophy, Gary Heiselberg, and George Fonda, consultants at Booz- Allen & Hamilton established the first U.S.Government electronic commerce system in 1981. This system, known as Automation of Procurement and Accounting Data Entry (APADE) was developed and fielded for the U.S. Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania." in an article about "Ecommerce and its implications". There may be something to this. 24.73.183.101 19:32, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
    • The above post was me-- I don't know how I got logged out. OfficeGirl 19:35, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment The "Ecommerce and its implications" article is not a reliable source. See my comment on Xuzo belo Bwithh 23:28, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Here, it seems he was a preseter at a major Defense Contractors Conference: "DEVOR. R. E. and J. SEELY-GANT. World Wide Web-enabled my collaboration through dynamically linked engineering testbeds. Defense Mfg. Conf. (Dallas, Tex., Nov. 1995). " OfficeGirl 19:42, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
    • If there is something to this, that isn't evidence of it. The web page that you linked to is a straight word-for-word, but not GFDL compliant, mirror of our electronic commerce article. The text that you are quoting was added to that article by Seelygant (talk • contribs), the creator of this article, in these edits. We still only have John Seely-Gant's sole word for any of this. Uncle G 20:48, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Oh, dear, I had no idea I had stumbled on to a mirror site. However, I don't think John Seely-Gant is the originator of this article. It may be his son or a close relative who is very proud of him. I emailed the subject of this article directly to ask him how we might document his accomplishments. He responded with some initial information and promised to follow-up. What makes me think that he did not write the article himself is a change in language that he asked for, as he said in his e-mail: It may be more accurate to characterize me as a "pioneer" than as an "originator" (though I did devise the first U.S. DoD ecommerce system with some others while at Booz, Allen). While I concur with Uncle G's assertion that we still don't have documented sources, I think I can get real sources before this discussion is concluded and that this man has been a significant player in the history of the development of the Internet and e-commerce. I request that someone notify me before any Admin action to delete so that I can userfy this article and get it into good shape for re-posting as a good article. Thanks. OfficeGirl 21:45, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. P.B. Pilhet / Talk 19:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Fails WP:V. No relevant hits on Factiva news database. No hits on google books, google scholar. No reliable hits on main google. Xuzo article linked is hosted by a website which accepts any article submission from anyone who wants "free publicity"[1]. If this guy really had a strong claim to be an ecommerce pioneer, there should be a much much greater internet information footprint than this. Bwithh 23:27, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Since his involvement in the Department of Defense E-commerce work happened in the 1980's, then we may well need to rely on print sources for this, not internet websites. I really think the sources are out there. I'll let you know. OfficeGirl 23:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Well good luck, but its not as if the United States of the 1980s is poorly covered by internet sources, magazine/news articles or books which are archived online. Factiva database coverage goes back to the 1980s for major news sources in US or even 1970s for a few sources. Google Books archives books going back well into the 1800s Bwithh 02:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
      • Note to closing admin If this afd closes as delete, please may the e-commerce article could be purged of related content due to issues identified by Uncle G Bwithh 23:31, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
        • Bwithh, did you forget that you are able to boldy edit the electronic commerce article yourself? If no citation is give for the fact in that article, you are certainly acting within guidelines to take it out of the article. OfficeGirl 23:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
            • This deletion discussion has not closed yet. It would be out of order for me to go ahead and remove the text related to this article in another article when the afd discussion has not been removed. Bwithh 02:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
              • It's okay with me if that's your interpretation of procedure, but I still think you are within policy to boldly edit in that matter. That's a completely different article and no citation of references is always a solid reason to remove an asserted fact, even if the fact is real and true. In any case, please keep in mind that we are talking about a living person here. Let's don't accuse him of things like fraud and a hoax when we have no evidence of that. We don't want to get into a slander an libel situation. All we know for sure is that the original author of this article did a poor job of documenting his sources-- actually didn't tackle the job of documenting sources at all before posting an article. I have begun rather extraordinary efforts to locate documentation of reliable sources for this article and I'm actually quite good at that task. Let's don't jump to a conclusion just because the source material doesn't just pop up instantly on our computer screens. Google isn't the only research tool that there is. I've seen many an AfD turn on a dime when the sources are located and change to "keep." As someone who has had no previous contact with this subject I think I will be able to give a neutral assesment of the documentation, and I will make this into a good Wikipedia article we can all be proud of if the sources turn out to be good. I know good evidence when I see it, and I wont be bashful about explaining that the evidence doesn't pass muster either. If the sources are iffy, I will report the same here on this AfD and advise the subject of the article that neither I nor any of the other editors on Wikipedia can do anything with it. I haven't even voted to "keep" yet-- just requested not to "speedy." A lot can happen in five days. I'm not just arguing a position-- I'm committed to do the work to back it up if this article can be saved. OfficeGirl 20:40, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete Invented e-commerce but is barely mentioned on teh Internets? That claim is smells so wildly overblown as to almost be a hoax. If you put his name in quotes you get even fewer hits. Plus, Google News and Books turn up goose eggs. JChap2007 00:47, 17 November 2006 (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.
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