Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Christopher Bollyn

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. —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 21:49, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Christopher Bollyn

Non notable fringe neo-nazi/conspiracy "journalist". Peephole 23:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Non-notable HOW???--Ed^{talk c E} 23:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment It's the article that has to assert how he is notable. All it says now is that he invented a couple of conspiracy theories and that he got himself arrested. Plus there isn't a single reliable source present either. --Peephole 23:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• Speedy keep. Although I can be mistaken, I sense that Peephole has some bitterness towards this guy. It even says in the article that he writes for the American Free Press, which is a legitimate and popular weekly newspaper. This guy also generates over 381,000 hits on Google. Besides this, he also passes WP:BIO. --Nishkid64 23:29, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Legitimate? American Free Press was founded by Willis Carto. A notorious neo-nazi and holocaust denier. Can you explain why you think he passes WP:BIO? --Peephole 23:46, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Reply. He meets Verifiability, but regarding WP:BIO, he satisfies the following criterion: 1) The person made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field, 2) Widely recognized entertainment personalities and opinion makers, 3) Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work, 4) A large fan base, fan listing or "cult" following (though this applies explicitly to television personalities, I would consider it applicable given the circumstances, 5) Persons achieving renown or notoriety for their involvement in newsworthy events, 6)The person has been the primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person. (Multiple similar stories describing a single day's news event only count as one coverage.). 6 criterion satisfied by my count isn't half-bad. Since most people barely pull one satisfactorily. Just because you nor I agree with him, support his claims, or want to see his views disseminated, such dislike does not make grounds for non-notability or exclusion when he satisfies an objective criterion. —ExplorerCDT 00:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Comment Could you please elaborate on these points and point out how exactly you think he meets them?--Peephole 11:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Even though the guy's a hard-to-swallow nutjob, he meets the notability tests (if only because of the notoriety of his nutjobness). —ExplorerCDT 23:39, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Keep He passes WP:BIO, but a weirdo nonetheless. TGreenburg
• Keep I don't know about this...you need to give a better reason to delete this article.--Ed^{talk c E} 01:04, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Morton devonshire 01:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Not notable. Æon ^{Insanity Now!}_EA! 02:32, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Delete ExplorerCDT listed 6 points of notability he thinks the subject passes, but without ANY supporting references. The American Free Press is a collection of like-minded individuals with similar pusuits, and since subject is a member, #6 is out, and NONE of the others are proven. #1 "Enduring Historical Record"? In what field, conspiracyism? #2-#5 Obviously by virtue of being here in articles for deletion, he is not that well-known. It is author's responsibilty to prove otherwise.Guyanakoolaid 10:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
  • COMMENT: You didn't obviously read no. 6...key word "independent." This has nothing to do with his publishing on American Free Press, but the fact that other people, independent of Bollyn, write about him...google should indicate that aside from the usual "we hate him just because he's a nazi" there is some serious (yes, even scholarly) coverage/review of his work. As for nos. 2-5, by virtue of this article being here at AfD, it appears the nominator isn't exposed to a lot of things in the world outside his own petty interests. In the neo-nazi fringe, he's a cult figure, people concerned about the rise of neo-nazism etc. know about him, people who know anything about the subject know about him. The nominator isn't well-versed in the subject, I assume, and I'll forgive him for that one. Most people didn't know who Amafanius was either, before the AFD last week (he was kept, by the way). Ergo, it's pretty obvious why I think Bollyn meets nos. 2-5. As for condition no. 1. You might think him a quack but then again, today we think Eugenics, Hollow Earth theory and other subjects are the making of quackery, but we still have articles on Francis Galton and John Cleves Symmes, Jr.. I'm not an inclusionist, but Wikipedia, if it is to be somewhat credible, should cover things that are beyond the pale of current popular culture and Star Wars/Star Trek/Pokemon characters...yes even those who have a minority opinion and operate on society's fringes...provided they meet the notability guidelines (which this guy DOES). I'd for one rather have a neutral article here for someone to learn about this guy if they happen to come across his name, than as a result of ignorance and lack of information get sucked in by his racist bullshit. I'm afraid you're more concerned about deleting another Nazi scumbag (as Bollyn is) than seeing the bigger, more important picture. —ExplorerCDT 10:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: Can you please tell us who has written about him? The current references in the article are CT sites, blogs, "the republican broadcasting network" and his own articles. --Peephole 11:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment for edification - User:Guyanakoolaid is a recently new user whose contributions largely centers around voting on AfD (which he/she must have discovered only minutes ago), and editing two articles Startime International and The Joggers. —ExplorerCDT 10:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Agree with Guyanakoolaid.Bagginator 11:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - the Pipes comments do not rise above the trivial (it's just another excuse for Pipes to write about his favourite subject, Daniel Pipes) and none of the other "sources" come close to being reliable (neither is Pipes in my view, but some may disagree). Not verifiable, no independent reporting worthy of the name, so in addition to failing the WP:BIO hurdles, it cannot meet two of the three WP:BLP requirements and should be stubbed if it is somehow kept. Angus McLellan (Talk) 12:56, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. --Aude (talk contribs as tagcloud) 16:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete cruft per nom. delete so our children don't have to. Won't somebody please think of the children? Tbeatty 22:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep A nutjob, yes, but his nutjobbery concerning Chertoff and 9/11 seismograph data shows up in a lot of conspiracy theories, and seems to be creeping into the mainstream. The article could have more information though. Ergative rlt 23:26, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

*Keep - passes WP:BIO. My Alt Account 02:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Finally some of Striver's conspiracy cruft I can vote to keep . He easily passes WP:BIO.--Cúchullain ^t/c 05:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete notablity not obvious.--MONGO 09:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

*Keep WP:BIO --Pussy Galore 11:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC) indef banned for trolling

• Weak Comment - vague glorification. i'm not keen. HawkerTyphoon 12:55, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

  I would rather see you clean up the glorification, then change your vote to keep :-) My Alt Account 13:01, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

  Duly noted. I'm an easy man to sway. HawkerTyphoon 13:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

• delete per nom. Crockspot 17:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. NN conspiracy-cruft. Arbusto 17:21, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. --Mmx1 01:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per ExplorerCDT. In what way is this person not notable? RFerreira 07:19, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment How is he notable, that's the question. --Peephole 11:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Tbeatty (that's a classic!) --Geneb1955^Talk/_CVU 15:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete -- Has made huge and obvious errors in reporting, promotes radiation / nukes at the crash sites, no planes, etc. Associated with antisemitic AFP/Barnes Review.

"American Free Press writer Christopher Bollyn published an article on 9/17/04 suggesting that no remains of Flight 93 were recovered from the crater. Others followed suit, with Morgan Reynolds denying the reported crashes of all four jetliners. Both Loose Change and 9/11 Revealed theorize that Flight 93's crash had been faked . . ."

http://911review.com/errors/phantom/flight93.html

Locewtus 23:43, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

• Huh? What does any of that have to do with whether he passes the criteria for inclusion? This isn't a vote to decide whether the subject's ideas are right or wrong. If you don't like the way the subject's opinions are covered in the article, feel free to fix it. But that's not a reason for deletion. My Alt Account 09:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom, Angus McLellan, Tbeatty. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:26, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom, Angus McLellan and Tbeatty. None of explorer's claims are at all persuasive. He might become notable at some point but he isn't right now. JoshuaZ 23:31, 13 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - plainly controversial in his own sphere but he does not seem to have been picked up by the mainstream media. Does not meet WP:BIO yet. BlueValour 02:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete - this series of AfDs is driving me nuts. No report by a conspiracy-theory website on a conspiracy-theorist should ever be considered as an independent reliable source. Yet look at the references in the article! Even the Daniel Pipes reference cites him as a "fringe antisemitic writer". I happen to have Google set so that French-language hits appear higher up and all the french references are from places like the Voltaire Network which however cool its name may sound is clearly viewed by every reasonnable french-speaker as an utter joke ready to jump on alternative theories of anything no matter how ludicrous. I'm not convinced by the "he's the king of nutjobs" argument. If the article is kept (which it might on no consensus) the article needs to be entirely re-written. The only fair way to describe him is "this guy is in the view of an immense majority a complete wacko. However a few scattered people take him seriously." Anything less would be giving undue weight to his supporters. Pascal.Tesson 03:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete (changing my vote) - yikes, I don't know what happened. I probably had a bunch tabs open and got confused about which article corresponded to which AfD. This guy is nowhere close to touching WP:BIO. Yes, this makes me look dumb. Now I wonder if I voted to delete someone else in a different AfD without meaning to. My Alt Account 04:50, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and Angus McLellan. --Aaron 05:22, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and Angus McLellan. KillerChihuahua^?!? 12:37, 14 September 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.