Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David DeAngelo (second nomination)

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. John Reaves (talk) 01:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] David DeAngelo (second nomination)

David DeAngelo (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Very not notable. Let me remind you that "a topic is notable if it has been the subject of secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, independent of the subject and independent of each other." There are no such sources -- Google News turns up only one hit for "David DeAngelo," and the reference is a single sentence long in a sex column. The article fails WP:CITE for just this reason -- and oh how it fails WP:CITE. Look at the references that we do have after the past two years: (1) is total spam; (2) only says how large the dude's e-mail list is, and is not reliable nor independent of the subject; (3)-(4) are non-notable blogs, (5)-(8) are primary sources, authored by DeAngelo himself, (9) is an unreliable anonymous person who cannot spell his own name "Dmitri" right, and (10) is more total spam. We don't have sources because they don't exist -- and their nonexistence is a fact regardless of how many hits you get on Google with his name (102,000 as of this post, and a quick scan of the first 100 hits shows nothing useful for encyclopedic use.) -- Drostie 00:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• A disclosure is requested on your part. Assuming it's true that you are an anti-abortionist, do you truly believe that your anti-abortionist beliefs do not cause you to exhibit bias against the seduction community and against the subject of this article? I form this connection because successful seduction training results in increased sex which results in increased pregnancies which results in increased abortions. --Amit 20:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Your assumption is rather blatantly incorrect. I'm vigorously pro-choice within the first two trimesters of pregnancy, when 99% of abortions happen. Even if I weren't, you're trying to draw a very weak link -- from "anti-abortion" to "anti-sexual" to "anti-seduction," which makes very little sense on balance. My argument is simple: we can't do a biographical article on DeAngelo, because there aren't any biographies of him. We can't do a scientific article on DeAngelo's work, because he hasn't published his work scientifically. We can't do an analysis of DeAngelo's popular impact, because only one single book has been written containing any information on that (The Game); and this book discusses only one seminar and makes passing reference to an e-mail list. What remains? An article documenting DeAngelo's personal beliefs, citing his e-books and websites as sources. I don't think that merits an encyclopedia article. -- Drostie 00:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• OK. Note that The Game makes 19 references to the subject. The new book The Mystery Method: How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed makes additionally makes 2 references to the subject. Note that these books are by competitors in the segment. --Amit 01:19, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• I am aware of the references that The Game makes -- I own the book. And none of them are good enough to deal with either a biography of DeAngelo, nor an analysis of popular impact. The two references in The Mystery Method -- well, did you even read the two references? They won't help either. Again, let me ask -- do you intend this as a biographical article, a scientific article, a popular-impact article, or an article on what DeAngelo happens to personally believe? If it's doomed to be the last of these, do you really think that's encyclopedic? -- Drostie 02:15, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• I wasn't debating the relevance of any of the references. I was just stating they exist, because that wasn't clear from your previous comment. --Amit 03:44, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Zero GNews hits. Doesn't appear notable outside the seduction community. ObtuseAngle 00:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. The seduction community by itself is notable. --Amit 02:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: That doesn't make DeAngelo notable, and you know it. -- Drostie 02:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• There is a strong relation between a subject being notable and their relation to a subset of the world, which I've gone into greater detail later on from here. Mathmo ^Talk 05:55, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per WP:N, WP:SPAM, WP:CITE and by who needs this crap anyway (scuse my French) Alf^Photoman 01:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: Your views exhibit excessive bias and generalization. What's crap to you is gold to someone else, and vice versa. --Amit 02:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Comment:I'm afraid I agree with Amit, your views exhibit bias. Neither have you explained how it violates said policies, nor given any specific reasons for deletion. Meaning, your sentence violates daa-da-da could be copy-pasted to 20 other AfDs without adding anything useful to the discussion. In addition to all of this, you ask who needs this crap anyway - i'd like answer - the people for whom we are writing this encyclopedia. An article on B7 (protein) is useless to a teenager surfing for porn, but is definitely useful to a high school student looking up proteins for bio class. Different areas of interest do not mean that someone else's area of interest is non-notable. If you could expand on your comment, it would be helpful. Thanks xC | ☎ 20:29, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, reference #2 would not only mention the size of his email list (which is over a million subscribers) but rather is just being used a reference for that one fact. Also the book is reliable and independent of David DeAngelo himself. Mathmo ^Talk 01:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - The book reads like fiction, is a primary source (not a secondary source), and was authored by someone who has a personal stake in the seduction community. We have no guarantee that the publisher tried to hold him to factual accuracy and verifiability; indeed, the (now-defunct) publishing imprint made a point of specializing in controversial materials. The Game is not a reliable secondary source -- not in the way that a New York Times article is. And Neil Strauss' New York Times article makes no mention of DeAngelo -- so we're supposed to believe that this guy is notable in the community? -- Drostie 02:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Why is The Game, which mentions David DeAngelo, not a valid source for the article? --Amit 02:58, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• You are replying to a comment that identifies precisely why it isn't. If you wish me to copy and paste it over again in specific response to you, I could, but it would be redundant. -- Drostie 03:04, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Where is the reference in wikipedia that sources have to be independent of each other? I'm sure it is somewhere, but with the changes that have been happening I can't quite see what has happened to it. I'm looking through WP:ATT but can't find any reference to independence of sources. Mathmo ^Talk 04:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, the only reference with even a semblance of reliability is the book, which is only being used to back up a single fact and certainly isn't primarily about this guy. Other than that, no sources. -Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 01:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. Let me remind you that seduction is a controversial topic to write about, and it therefore doesn't receive much coverage in the popular press. I suggest you use Google News Archive search to determine references. Here are a few references for David DeAngelo and/or Double Your Dating:

1. [1] (possibly needs user registration)
2. [2] (press release)
3. [3] (blog)
4. [4] (not free)
5. [5] (not free) (irrelevant)
6. [6] (press release)
7. [7]
8. [8] (In Spanish and not useful)

There are therefore sufficient sources for the article to pass WP:CITE. --Amit 02:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment Great. If somebody works these into the article, I'll change my vote. However, these articles can't satisfy WP:CITE until they're cited. ObtuseAngle 02:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - No, those sources don't remove the WP:CITE burden: (1) DeAngelo only appears in one sentence in this article. (2) Press release distributor that, hence, doesn't do fact-checking; the freaking company's slogan is "Accelerating Search Visibility." (3) That's a blog, you dodo. (4) & (5), I can't comment on them because they're not publically available. (6) ... Another press release factory. (7) Finally, a legitimate source. Unfortunately, this is an opinion article within that source. (8) Sorry, can't read Spanish. ... these sources don't pass WP:CITE in the least. -- Drostie 02:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Watch your language. This is your first and only warning. --Amit 02:51, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• ...What are you warning me of, exactly? And, I mean, Wikipedia is more tolerant than that -- blatant vandals get three or so warnings before they get blocked for a short while. Surely my use of the words "freaking" and "dodo" is no worse than intentional vandalism...? ...Also, I managed to use a news proxy to look at (5). It has absolutely nothing to do with David DeAngelo in the least. The term "Double your dating" in the title is there because hey, if a couples dates a couple, it's "double" the dating. Har har and whatnot. -- Drostie 03:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• I am striking the phrase "In Spanish and not useful" form the article. If you can't understand Spanish, that's your misfortune. There is nothing that says sources have to be English-language. -- Black Falcon 09:48, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• I am also striking "not free", as that is irrelevant to the value of a source. -- Black Falcon 09:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: To summarize the obvious, links 1, 4, and 7 are relevant, in varying degrees. --Amit 03:32, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• But again, I'd respond that they're not relevant enough to make the man notable. The first falls into a problem with WP:BIO: "Trivial, or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability." The single sentence describing DeAngelo is not that sort of in-depth thing. And the other two are editorials -- one is a story about some romance novel that a woman is writing; the other is a guy talking about how interested he was in something DeAngelo wrote. Think about what we're looking for in a biography; what we're looking for from a notable source. What's DeAngelo's birthdate? His hometown? How do we know that his name is "Eben Pagan"? What's his pickup-success rate? What's the national average? How did he grow up? What has he contributed to the world? Remember, encyclopedias aren't designed to cover every guy out there on the internet with a website. Right now, this article is basically a detailed (but poorly sourced) article on his teachings in the field of dating. Nobody can say whether those teachings are useful, because no independent meticulous research has been done on that. All we know, is that there is some dude, who believes some things, has a website, and occasionally does private seminars that don't make it into the news. If he could back up his assertions, then maybe he'd be a great psychologist or sociologist. But right now, he's nothing of the sort -- and we don't have the sorts of news articles saying, "sociologist David DeAngelo revealed decisive proof today that attraction is caused by such-and-such." There is a certain character to notability. DeAngelo does not have that character. -- Drostie 04:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• I assert he is more than "some dude". Like I said before, seduction is not a topic most researchers delve into, for obvious reasons. Only if you are part of the underground restricted-access seduction community (which it seems you are not) will you know the true extent of his followers - relative to the following of other community teachers. News articles mean nothing in comparison. Do you have personal reasons for having this article deleted? --Amit 04:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• No personal reasons -- I just want to see this encyclopedia kept up to standards. And if a subculture explicitly avoids being verifiable, then we must reject their articles for not fulfilling WP:V. But let's not pretend this is an "underground restricted-access seduction community" -- DeAngelo is running a web business trying to sell his unresearched unverifiable crap to anyone who will listen. There is not enough info about this man to write a good biographical article, because this man has not done enough to have any sort of worldwide reknown. He's not notable. And that's a fact. -- Drostie 05:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• I ask you again to please not use POV words such as crap, etc. Anyway, would you be so inclined as to ever delete apparently non-notable Cornell related articles, such as:

1. The Cornell Daily Sun
2. The Cornell Review
3. The Cornell Centrist
4. Cornell Moderator
5. Cornell Theory Center

None of them seem to have listed notable sources. If I were to AfD any or ALL of them - AND about a dozen more - right NOW - in the name of non-notability, how would you react? What would you have to say about the ones you couldn't defend with credible sources? I'm stating this in an attempt to reason by analogy. By calling David DeAngelo's work crap, you've proven that you've personal reasons to get this article deleted. --Amit 05:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

This is getting overheated in my opinion. You're both getting close to violating WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA.ObtuseAngle 05:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I am tending to agree with you here, so you two take this a bit of friendly advice from two other editors to cool down the tone of your comments a little bit. Also I'm frankly somewhat disturbed that the nominator would go to such low behavour, it puts your entire AfD nomination into question. Mathmo ^Talk 06:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'd actually be fine with deletions ot the Cornell Review, the Cornell Centrist, and the Cornell Moderator. The theory center article is a stub -- but the center itself is notable; and I'm sure you can e-mail them if you want a list of publications that make reference to their work. The Daily Sun is the only notable news paper at Cornell, and all of the undergraduates know it. -- Drostie 19:27, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for an apparently genuine reply. Note, however, that in the strict sense, notability must be demonstrated in the same manner that you have insisted must hold for this article. Therefore, as popular as the Daily Sun may be, and as important as the Theory Center may be, if they both don't have third-party external sources listed, they are a candidate for deletion. Are you getting the analogy? Yes, of course you are. But then why are you mentioning asking undergrads - isn't that similar to asking members of the seduction community about who the gurus are? Do you see the hypocrisy? Also, note that there are a dozen other unsourced Cornell articles that can be deleted. Do you still insist upon your extreme strictness? - Perhaps I should just AFD Daily Sun and Theory Center to see how that goes. Whatever your answer, I have a plan.

I would also like to clarify that I have nothing personal against you, and I don't mean for this discussion to be heated. There's just no other way I see of going forward with this. --Amit 20:26, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, I'm not saying that "The Cornell undergraduates know about the Sun, therefore it is notable." Rather, I'm saying that "The Cornell undergrads know that the other three newspapers are not notable, therefore they are clearly notable. As for the Sun's notability, I'm fairly sure that the Sun has won awards for journalistic excellence, and the like. They'd probably be happy to furnish you with such references; it's one of the oldest college papers in the world.

From my perspective, it's not just that DeAngelo is (imho, rather clearly) non-notable. It's that the last time this was up for deletion, people promised notability, they promised nice, third-party references, and there wasn't consensus either way -- the votes for "keep" and "delete" split the vote pattern. I feel like the end result was a sort of contingent keep -- "We'll keep this article around, but only so long as you make good on your promise to demonstrate notability and get this thing sourced." Several years later, it still hasn't happened.

-- Drostie 21:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Points:

1. You say: The Cornell undergrads know that the other three newspapers are not notable, therefore they are clearly notable. You therefore assert NOT(A)=A.
2. I'm sure The Daily Sun is a fine newspaper, but it's the responsibility of the editors of its WP article's editors to include acceptable third-party references, without which an AfD is probably not unjustified.
3. You said: let's not pretend this is an "underground restricted-access seduction community". Oh but a good part of it is. This part, in fact, is very large and popular once you get access to it. My point is that David DeAngelo is notable there.
4. You said a lot about how he is not very academic. In research there is a balance between how extensive your results are and how significant they are. I've had university professors talk about their research at length with the research often not being "rigorously statistically significant with very high confidence". The truth is that I don't mind that at all, and most would agree with me there. It's not your call to say that only rigorous publications have value. This ain't physics. From what I've often seen, sociologists performing rigorous research often tend to prove rather trivial things, like the chances of sex for women after alcohol consumption are higher than normal, or that yes women are proven to have longer relationships with men who are financially stable and not entirely broke - all that was very useful - bleh. From an academic perspective, the preliminary work done by David DeAngelo actually gives academic researchers something more influential to work on. Also something you should know that is that only a part of his materials are original - most are borrowed and well sourced.

--Amit 04:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

1. I apologize about that; I appear to have misspoke. I meant "The Cornell undergraduates know that it is not notable, therefore it is not notable." That is, Cornell undergraduates may not be able to testify to a Cornell article's notability; but they can testify to its non-notability. Do you see my point?
2. Most articles on Wikipedia fail WP:CITE. (The ones that don't get promoted to FA.) Failing WP:CITE is only grounds for deletion if it's impossible to find enough sources to build a good encyclopedia article. And as far as I can tell, in this case, that's true.
3. In the sense that I'm using it, "notable" is not reflexive to a community. Quoting from WP:NOTE, the relevant Wikipedia policy, "Notability is not subjective... The inclusion of topics on Wikipedia is a reflection of whether those topics have been included in reliable published works. Other authors, scholars, or journalists have decided whether to give attention to a topic, and in their expertise have researched and checked the information about it. Thus, the primary notability criterion is a way to determine whether "the world" has judged a topic to be notable. This is unrelated to whether a Wikipedia editor personally finds the subject remarkable or worthy." So even if a community believes a person is noteworthy (which is what I believe you're claiming), this does not mean that the person is notable.
4. You're right. It's not either of our call. Rather, it's Wikipedia's call -- and Wikipedia has made that call, in my favor. Wikipedia doesn't adhere to truth -- they adhere to verifiability; see WP:V for details. You're trying to say that you don't care whether DeAngelo's work is rigorous -- but Wikipedia does. It doesn't matter whether DeAngelo is right or not; and I never speculated either way on that. But either way, this article must pass WP:A: "Wikipedia articles must be based on reliable sources. Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand... The most reliable sources are books and journals published by universities; mainstream newspapers; and magazines and journals that are published by known publishing houses. What these have in common is process and approval between document creation and publication. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Material that is self-published is generally not regarded as reliable, but see below for exceptions." (Emphases mine. The "exceptions" mentioned will do you no good, because DeAngelo's writings don't pass those tests -- and they'd have to make up a majority of the article anyways, which is not allowed by the "exceptions" clause.)

-- Drostie 20:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I thank you for your reply and for reasoning this out. I think we have debated all that we can. What remains is to see how others play this out. Just a quick note: I might steal your gf using his non-notable techniques. After all, we go to the same school, and it wouldn't be terribly hard. (This also means I would never actually AfD The Daily Sun.) Cheers. --Amit 03:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The fact that you don't have a gf of your own clearly means that his techniques don't work as well as he says. :-P Cheers to you as well. -- Drostie 04:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

With any luck, we'll soon have some independent confirmation of the measure of the work's effectiveness. Also, as you may know, I'm grad with long term geographical uncertainty. As for his work, I've reviewed but five percent of it. --Amit 04:43, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Having a gf or not is not an indicator of if the article should be kept. Personally I do have a gf, a totally awesome one to at that. However not everybody chooses to have one, there are certainly advantages to being single over having a gf and for a while before her I was of the view those advantages outweighed the negatives. Alternatively yet another view point is that Amit might have more than one, and plans to add another to his harem! Either which way, it is often up to the individual to choose to be single or not. At least that is the way it ought to be. Personally I would never ever be forced to be single or not. Mathmo ^Talk 04:46, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

(ding, carriage return) 3. Regarding notability, if a subset of the world shows that a subject is notable then that subject is notable. Because in the end, it is impossible for the entire world to have found a subject to be notable and thus we are always dealing with a subset of the world. Also additionally you claim that noteworthy and notable are not the same thing. To which I'll refer you to the opening sentence of WP:NOTE which you yourself referred to: Notable is defined as "worthy of being noted". Mathmo ^Talk 05:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That's simply not how notability works. I am a prophet to a group of about half a dozen people. They consider me noteworthy. But I don't think that warrants a Wikipedia article. The opening sentence you quote is only eight days old as of right now; and may still require some revision -- but the rest of the article is crystal clear: Notability requires multiple reliable secondary sources. As I've been saying all this time, notability is really just an extension way to enforce Notability is a guideline to enforce the core policy of Wikipedia:Attribution. WP:A says that it doesn't matter whether material is true or not; what matters is whether it's attributable to a reliable published source. The purpose of WP:BIO and WP:NOTE is to make sure that those reliable published sources exist before we go off on an article about this thing. When Cambridge publishes The Cambridge Companion to Seduction to go with their Companion to Atheism and Companion to Wittgenstein, well, then we can start covering DeAngelo's speculations on Wikipedia. But until we have something to write a biographical article with, a biographical article shouldn't be written. -- Drostie 21:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

noteworthy = notable, there are even references for that on WP:NOTE. You are still misunderstanding me, I'm using notability in the WP:NOTE sense and not whatever else you are thinking I'm meaning. So when a subset of the world has found a person to be notable then obviously they are notable. Because we are always dealing with subsets of the world anyway. So if your half dozen people had made you notable (according to WP:NOTE) then yes you would be notable. Lastly, we obviously do not have to wait for Cambridge University Press to publish a book on a topic before we can write an article on it. Mathmo ^Talk 03:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• I'm saying that the criterion for notability is simply "there are good secondary sources," not "these people think that the person is notable." That's why I'm distinguishing the term "noteworthy" -- as in literally, "worthy of notice," -- from "notable", which has a precise Wikipedia meaning. As I (mis-)typed in my last comment, notability is a guideline meant to ask the question, "Can WP:A be fulfilled?" -- and that's exactly what the question, "Is this notable?" means. And I still don't think we can write an article fulfilling WP:A. I really think that the few references so far found don't back up much, factually speaking. For example, I never got an answer to my question, "How do we know his real name is Eben Pagan?" The most that The Game will tell me is that the dude was a real-estate agent who teaches dating seminars that tell dudes to be "cocky funny." The American Chronicle expands this to "some dating-advice sites believe his writings will make you feel more confident." That's still only a stub article that we can write. -- Drostie 02:13, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

A stub article is better than no article. His notability has been asserted already. His real name and other such details are subject to finding sources. Until then, we go by the name he uses. Deleting him outright would mean ignoring the sources that we do have, ignoring his contributions to the seduction community, and branding him non-notable inspite of evidence which shows he is. Also, even if this doesn't seem relevant please bear with me, Drostie are you a deletionist? xC | ☎ 09:17, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: one of the more unusual references I've come across is this one, because it reviews David DeAngelo magazine for the PSP!! Didn't even know there are magazines for the PSP, then again I shouldn't really be surprised. Plus it seems was the most popular download on that site. Mathmo ^Talk 12:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, [9] same kind of thing as what I just said above in refering to the PSP magazine. There is also several passing mentions of him in this article from American Chronicle. Mathmo ^Talk 12:29, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Look at that website again; that article is not from the American Chronicle. It's from AskDanAndJennifer.com. Even if it were from the American Chronicle, who the hell are they? -- Drostie 20:18, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Exactly how long did you spend looking at that article... ?? The writers are from that other site, nothing wrong or unusual about that. Is common place that a writer will have their own site. As for "who the hell are they?" comment, that is not a reason they should be ignored. There is a lot you haven't heard of, for instance myself was just reading on wikipedia about a big affair involving a CIA leak. Never heard of it myself, most probably due to my geographical location but it is a big thing over there. Anyway, getting back on track.. the American Chronicle does have oversight from a board of editors. Mathmo ^Talk 05:24, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
        • I spent long enough to realize that this article could only be a good citation for the fact "Some people believe that DeAngelo's work makes you feel more confident" -- since that's the only mention that DeAngelo's work gets. And yes, this article is from the blog-ish site AskDanAndJennifer.com; as proof, you can find the original article here. Since it was an outsource to a third party blog, much like the comics or Dear Abby-ish columns in your normal paper, the American Chronicle likely did not do a thorough editorial review of their work. (And how do we know that the American Chronicle has this board of editors? It appears to be a web news service.) -- Drostie 18:28, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
          • It states so on American Chronicle that they have a board of editors. Mathmo ^Talk 02:30, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete spam/promo. Wile E. Heresiarch 04:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Is "spam" because..... ?? Mathmo ^Talk 05:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete no bloody way is this prat notable enough IMO. only a few of the references above are linked to him and most just mention him in passing. Id agree that he fails WP:BIO and WP:CITE. TSMonk 13:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • It's a shame how biased the views of people like you are, given the fact that such people usually know little if anything about depth of the content to talk with such confidence. Perhaps you should consider whether the words that you used (e.g. prat) apply more to yourself than to the subject. --Amit 20:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
    • And its very interesting that you make comments like that when you know absolutely nothing of my views on the topic, or my knowledge of this man. I have read many articles on the "seduction community" and DeAngelo and I consider the man an idiot. However, this has nothing to do with my decision to vote delete, I have stated my reasons above. As much as Im sure you feel that everyone who has a differing viewpoint to you is either wrong or an idiot, the nice thing about WP is that we can all air our own opinions, hopefully without some little child crying because they dont match his. Get off your high horse and shut up TSMonk 22:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
      • I don't care what you think. Just behave in an appropriate manner over here by not name-calling article subjects. Keep your emotions at home. I'll do the same. --Amit 01:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep The only problem here is that the subject of sex/seduction is highly controversial and a spam/promo target. The article needs to be rewritten in NPV. STILL, this guy and his company are extremely influential. A search on Google for "Double Your Dating" returns close to HALF A MILLION hits. Notable enough for a WP entry. DutchSeduction 21:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment: You seem to not understand what notability is. "A topic is notable if it has been the subject of secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, independent of the subject and independent of each other." Do you see any criteria in that statement for "extremely influential"...? For "a search on Google"...? No, and for good reason. There are no secondary sources, and no good article fulfilling WP:A could possibly be written about this man. The dude is non-notable, and that's a fact. -- Drostie 04:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment: Whiny comments like those by Drostie above illustrate the problem perfectly. Once a subject receives more than HALF A MILLION entries in the Google search engine, a WP article might become useful to a substantial number of readers because "Double Your Dating" qualifies as an Internet meme of its own. And yet some people engage in a systematic campaign to remove the subject just because it is controversial or personally distasteful to them. They would do better to help improve the article than trying to engage in selective censorship. DutchSeduction 19:43, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep DeAngelo is a notable figure in the seduction community, which is a notable entity. I shall later go into why I think the seduction community is difficult to discuss on Wikipedia.

-- Sasuke Sarutobi 02:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Comment: As per the above discussion, notability is not reflexive to a community. Though the community may be notable, not all noteworthy people in a notable community are notable. The real question is, are there reliable, independent secondary sources such that WP:A could be fulfilled? If not, then the article cannot be reasonably written. -- Drostie 04:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
    • What above "discussion"? I only see one comment by yourself. Plus I believe you probably incorrectly read what Sasuke Sarutobi was stating. In my view it is that he said David DeAngelo is notable, and that also he is part of notable community. Or in other words he said he is notable, and then made an additional statement afterwards. Mathmo ^Talk 05:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, and that comment was part of a discussion. In any case, DeAngelo's notability is precisely what's in question here. It doesn't help any of this to have people just saying "He is notable." Remember, AfD isn't a vote; and "notability" isn't based on the opinions of Wikipedia users. There have been no biographies of DeAngelo, nor a large academic (sociological) discussion in the peer-reviewed literature about his theories. He hasn't won any prominent sociology prizes. Without stuff like these, how are we supposed to write a good biographical encyclopedia article? -- Drostie 18:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep DeAngelo is a notable figure in the seduction community, and he is the author of several important books and videos for the community.

--Vspaceg 17:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I wouldn't question that DeAngelo is notable within the seduction community; he clearly is. That's not the question here, though. The questions are whether he's notable enough for his own article, and whether there is enough material extant to write a biographical article which can pass WP:A and WP:BLP. After digging through all the links, I'm willing to grant the former, sort of. The Orlando Sentinel article, along with a couple other passing references, is enough to establish that he's been regarded as an expert on seduction outside the seduction community. His case for notability is not as rock-solid as all the other persons on the list of "Notable members of the seduction community," all of whom have been the subject of reliable articles, but hey, some articles are harder to source than others. If the only question was one of notability, I'd change my vote. It's the latter question that I'm stuck on. Is David DeAngelo really a pseudonym? I'm quite sure it is. But where's the published biography? Is Eben Pagan his real name? Does he actually have a doctorate? What's it in? According to WP:BLP, we could not even assert that David DeAngelo is a pseudonym unless we had a reliable source. What needs to be remembered here is that the article in question is biographical, which means there are policies which must be followed. ObtuseAngle 23:32, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. - The multiple sources (like those cited by Amit) are sufficiant in satsfying our notability guildlines. Controversial topic, but WP:IDONTLIKEIT is not a reason to delete an article. --Oakshade 01:25, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Needs to be re-written, but sources do exist, as outlined above. Here's another one from the Denver Westword. --SecondSight 07:44, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Comment. New ref: San Francisco Chronicle! It only makes a passing reference, but such passing references in multiple articles wouldn't have been made if the person was not notable.

• Strong Keep His contribution to the seduction community is of wide note, his seminars teaching cocky comedy and body language are popular. Out of curiosity I signed up for his newsletter and then started looking about the net if he had anything other than the newsletter to brag about. Apparently he does. His company DYD now also publishes works of other authors - Carlos Xuma, to name one. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xcentaur (talk • contribs) 08:04, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

Comment I'd also like to point out that within the seduction community, DD Style Mystery Juggler Ross, all of them are definitely notable. Now outside of that, DYD has columns on at least a dozen websites, like AskMen.com, Mystery has appeared in the newspapers half a dozen times, Style is a fixture on the celebrity circuits, for example the rumours involving his girlfriend Lisa and Robbie Williams were hyped out of proportion. There are just a few examples, many more exist. Deletion of DD's article signals that the community doesn't deserve space on WP, which is not the message we want to send out. Thanks xC | ☎ 08:17, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• Weak delete - primarily spam and self-promoting nonsense, but there do seem to be a few non-trivial sources. If the article is kept, needs a thorough NPOV rewrite. DWaterson 14:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Calling an article "spam" and "self-promoting nonsense" would be your own personal POV opinion? If not could you please explain to us why?? Mathmo ^Talk 17:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Agreed with Mathmo: this is a place for discussing the article, if you could give us examples how the article is primarily spam and self-promoting nonsense, we would all be grateful. Also, sources are usually non-trivial, if they aren't, then they aren't sources. Just a thought. xC | ☎ 20:22, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

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