Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Mayo

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 userfy/move, keep the other two. SushiGeek 03:52, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Paul Mayo

Non-notable, vanity. Should be moved to user page.

Move, same reasons. Sorry Paul, nothing personal. Jefffire 13:52, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages because they seem equally non-notable (I could be wrong, but more than one astrologer should be included in editing them). Lundse 13:58, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Jeff Mayo
• Mayo School of Astrology

I am hoping the above user will update his vote to include (or not) these, and that f the vote is to delete/move, I suggest we also remove the two persons from the List of Astrologers article. Lundse 14:01, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Move per nom. Metamagician3000 14:34, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Fine - I'll remove my page, though it's clearly not an advert and no doubt would have been edited by other astrologers in due course. It is not against the rules to put up your own page, though I know it's frowned on. MayoPaul5 15:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

A further thought - as debunkers would like to get rid of all astrology pages if they could - they have the avowed intent of wiping astrology off the face of the planet, so their vote, strictly speaking, should be discounted, more so as they are poorly placed to decide on matters affecting astrology because their knowledge of the subject is invariably close to zero (on the grounds: why waste your time when it's all a lot of nonsense anyway?). Frankly I find it quite offensive, considering astrology has a community more than averagely packed with M.A.'s, PhD's and other clever and multi-talented people. Surely common-sense says that they haven't all been hoodwinked? MayoPaul5 17:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggest you leave Jeff Mayo & Mayo School on, Lundse, as someone is bound to put them in at some point. Jeff was one of the most famous astrologers of the 20thC - but you wouldn't know that I guess, as you evidently, like Jefffire, know nothing about astrology. Neither Jeff Mayo nor the Mayo School has any connection to me whatsoever (see my comment on my talk page), and clearly the only reason they have been nominated is because they happen to have the same surname as myself. None of the other pages I have edited has been nominated, even though some of them are slighter, so this is clearly the reason. I see how it all works now - very cosy. That tells me more about the influence of the debunkers on this site than I want to know. Please tell me that the three of you who have voted so far are not all skeptics or debunkers desperate for evey inch of advantage you can get for your point of view, and I'll be both surprised and impressed. MayoPaul5 15:32, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a visit to your user pages shows I was correct - one skeptic, two debunkers. It does look just a tiny, tiny bit like a conspiracy, guys. Hope I can be proved wrong, for the sake of editorial freedom in Wikipedia. MayoPaul5 17:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Alright, how about me? I'm willing to be convinced; can you source the elements of WP:BIO under which you prove significantly notable? Until then, Move per nom to user page. RGTraynor 18:31, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks RGT, I appreciate your neutral input. Jeff Mayo and the Mayo School certainly qualify under those guidelines - I'd better leave it to other editors to provide the details to avoid further criticism. As for myself, borderline. I can't cite my famous clients, so that's no use. I have numerous clippings from newspapers but that may not be enough. I have varous other claims to notability which I did not mention, such as being the originator and organiser of the ground-breaking UK Earth Spirit Festival in 1984 and 1985 (which the papers said attracted 6,500 people), and the founder and first Chair of UFORM. However, I suspect that none of this will count a bean for those determined to see me off, therefore like I already said, I'll remove my page. I'm not a vain person, and I only did the entry because a few clients had asked me to. At that point I was not familiar with the Wikipedia tradition (though it should have been obvious not to write my own page, in hindsight). MayoPaul5 18:57, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

To Mayo - yes, I did find Jeff through you, because I have formerly seen an astrologer put himself on that list and make a page much like yours. So I searched the list for your name and found more people with the same surname and made by you - so I did assume you were related, sorry if I was wrong. I do not know how notable the Mayo school et al is within the astrological community - it is very possible they should stay, as I said in my nomination (I still stand by the fact that more than one astrologer should note them, though). I do not get your argument that skeptics should not edit astrology, who do you mean should be excluded: those with an ideological stake in the matter (including astrologers?), or that only those who disagree with your and/or require evidence before wanting something to be stated as fact in an encyclopedia? And for the record, I am still willing to be convinced. Both with regards to the notability of you and the other Mayo's and about astrology (I lurk in "validity of ast..."). Lundse 07:31, 21 April 2006 (UTC) (a bit late in writing his sig)

I did not say "skeptics should not edit astrology" as you claim. I said they should not vote on this issue. Get your glasses on, whoever you are. MayoPaul5 19:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: That presupposes skeptics cannot apply NPOV and the rules and guidelines of Wikipedia in a dispassionate, clinical fashion, and infers that believers invariably (and uniquely) can, two presumptions I for one am unwilling to make. Assume good faith. RGTraynor 19:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
• Reply: No it doesn't RGT, on either count. Anyone who believes anything will be biased, whether for or against. NPOV is a myth, and hard for anyone to keep to (but very well worth the effort). But as this "attack" came at a certain point in a fairly unfriendly "discussion" between myself and Jefffire the debunker, I'm sure you can understand that it raised my suspicions that he had orchestrated a campaign to hit at me any way he could, which suspicion proved unfounded as he provided with me with his assurance it was not so, which is good enough for me. MayoPaul5 21:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Just realised that last anonymous entry was yours, Lundse - sorry if I was a bit abrupt. Glad to hear you are maintaining an open mind about astrology. MayoPaul5 19:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

• • • You should assume good faith. I don't know whether you counted me as one of the debunkers or as the sceptic in your post above. Either way, I would vote to keep an article about an astrologer, a fundamentalist evangelist, or anyone else whom I disagreed with, as long as the article made plausible claims of notability and met other criteria. (You yourself assess your notability as "borderline" in the discussion above.) Similarly, I would vote to delete an article about a non-notable scientific sceptic. I cast a lot of votes in this forum, and I don't discriminate on whether the subjects of biographical articles share my own world view. And for the record, I have had no dealings whatsoever with the two people who voted before me. Metamagician3000 00:55, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• • • • Everything you say here is very reassuring, Metamagician, and I respect your detachment. I counted you as a debunker, info derived from your user page. I'm a simple man, metamagician, but long in the tooth. I trust people until they show me otherwise. As soon as I see the word "debunker" I read "untrustworthy", as, rightly or wrongly, that is what I have seen in the past. But if even the most avowed debunker tells me categorically they are trustworthy in any respect, their credit in that respect is cautiously restored in my eyes.

But there's no need for all this - I have already said I shall remove my page, as it does not seem appropriate to maintain it - on that I think we are agreed. In fact I bitterly regret putting up all the pages of notable living astrologers I have started to add. It never occurred to me what a hornets nest I might be exposing them to. I see myself getting into trouble with some of them over this, though my intention was simple and honest - to be helpful and informative. As I know or have at least met most of them (and read their books) I might have been a useful source of info I would have thought. In summary, my vote is to remove my own page, keep Jeff Mayo's (as he is dead) and the Mayo School's. MayoPaul5 08:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

• userify as per nom Pete.Hurd 00:06, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Job done. Just needs the actual page removing now, by someone who knows how. MayoPaul5 12:18, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

As nobody has specifically voted to remove the Jeff Mayo and Mayo School pages, I assume they are to be left? MayoPaul5 12:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

It is quite curious to me that there are clearly very few astrologers editing this website, as most of the arguments I've looked at are either dominated or totally decided by people whose user-pages show them to be not only non-astrologers, but scientists, pseudo-scientists, people whose main interests appear to lean towards science, debunkers and skeptics. This is clearly an imbalance, entirely the fault of the astrological community being so slow to wake up to Wikipedia's existence let alone significance. MayoPaul5 12:33, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Well ... come to that, would it surprise you to learn I'm a former CSICOP member? That being said, I see no more reason why I cannot reasonably and dispassionately apply the various rules and guidelines governing the verifiability and notability of articles in this instance than to any others referenced in the the numerous AfD discussions on which I comment; plainly some astrologers satisfy WP:BIO, regardless of whether I consider their pseudo-science delusion at best. We need more dispassionate judges and observers here, and fewer partisan cheering sections. RGTraynor 14:18, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't doubt that you are every bit as reasonable and dispassionate as you claim to be RGT; I have no evidence of any other and would never imagine any other unless and until it was demonstrated. And that is very honest of you to own up to being a former CSICOP member, and therefore I assume yet another debunker - this place seems to be littered with them. Similarly to you, I would vote for a debunker who satisfied the editorial conditions, even though I do regard them as suffering from the most appalling narrow-mindedness that causes their first victim to be the search for truth. Did you leave CSICOP after you found out about their scandalous deception of the scientific community? MayoPaul5 20:02, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I consider "narrow-mindedness" a virtue in AfD debates. So many rebuttals to nominations focus on how much work the editor put into the article, how invaluable a resource it can be, how it surely could be expanded into something more useful, how one's background unfairly affects voting, how the article is a step in some manner of public outreach, etc. Unfortunately, AfD focuses on only two real issues: is the subject notable? Is the article verifiable? The same applies to skepticism at large, where the only question at hand is whether the claims are verifiably, unambiguously true. For anything beyond that, I imagine we ought to take it to User Talk pages ... RGTraynor

Don't get me wrong, RGT. You and I are absolutely in agreement on the value of the parameters you abide by. As described by you, they do not in my opinion comprise narrow-mindedness, but common-sense. Skepticism I have no quarrel with, in fact applaud it. Taught, skeptical arguments impress and convice me. I aspire to be that way, but do not pretend to have got there yet. It is wooliness and deception I dislike, whether from debunkers or astrologers or anyone else. MayoPaul5 21:54, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I hope this is not an argument about whether astrology "belongs" in Wiki. I don't want to join such a discussion. Forgetting whether or not you have any respect for astrology, the study of its history and considerable cultural influence is an important intellectual pursuit. In that context, Jeff Mayo was an important, highly trained British astrologer of noted integrity and influence. I had absolutely no connection with him nor have I ever met or communicated with any of his heirs or students. He wrote several fine books, some of which are still in print. His approach to astrology was singularly schematic, since Mayo was a good astronomer and insisted that astrologers understand the physical, phenomenal basis of what they do to a degree that was singular in his time. I suggest that the decision about the inclusion of such material should be left to those with serious interest in the history and technique of astrology. I have authored at least a dozen good articles in Wiki on the subject--mostly in the history of astrology--and materially revamped dozens of others, and I hope my opinion will have some weight. I see no legitimate reason to delete the article. NaySay 17:24, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

No such discussion is on offer or would be appropriate; astrology is a notable and longstanding field of human endeavor, perfectly appropriate for citation in an encyclopedia, regardless of any debate on its merits or accuracy. RGTraynor 19:14, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Paul Mayo, notability problem. Article blanked by author = request to delete (author also appears to be the subject of the article.) Weak delete Mayo School of Astrology, online correspondence course, probably should be judged as WP:CORP rather than WP:SCHOOL. "School" has been around pretty long though, so weak opinion only. No "vote" on Jeff Mayo, amazon.com seems to have a couple of books published by real publishers, though have low sales ranks; I don't know if qualifies as author. Weregerbil 12:06, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

No vote on Jeff Mayo and his school. I simply do not know enough about these and lack the time to research it - I sincerely hope that a few astrology adherents and skeptics can agree on whether they are notable. My nomination was based on who created them, which turned out to be a coincidenc e (sorry). Lundse 13:21, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• As per my discussion above, Userfy and Delete on Paul Mayo (as I believe he has already done), Keep on Jeff Mayo and the Mayo School. RGTraynor 13:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, as noted above, blanked by author.Mystache 14:00, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• Delete original page, blacked by author; Weak keep/Expand the other two pages, some notability seems to be established. --ES2 15:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Separate Comment: Paul, please do assume good faith. I'm a skeptic and debunker, but WP is a place where both James Randi and Sylvia Browne, because of individual notability, can have articles. --ES2 15:19, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
• Observation -- Above the issue was raised if sceptics should "vote" on astrology articles, and some disagreement emerged on their ability to judge the neutrality of an article's point of view. That, however, was not the issue; the issue was notability. Indeed, people having the opinion that everything involving topic X is hogwash may not be the best positioned to judge notability, and should try to exercise a reasonable amount of restraint. Conversely, people who believe that all X is of the utmost importance might be inclined to ascribe more notability than is warranted. But I think recommendations from all sides are welcome. I'm more bothered by "votes" of people who don't investigate the issues before voting, who fail to consider earlier arguments, or who totally misapply the existing policies. Lambiam^Talk 20:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

• Response: ES2, how can I afford to assume good faith when you immediately cite a perfect example of your bias, by quoting Randi (a successful debunker) and Browne (a fairly well-demolished claimant to be psychic)? Why not quote a successful psychic to balance Randi? It would seem more even-handed. For example, what about Uri Geller, who earned his fortune by charging oil and other prospecting companies 200,000 dollars a throw for saying "x marks the spot to the nearest centimetre. Drill down at 13.52 degrees N5.2degNW for 1231 metres and you'll find the product at this specific rate of flow, this specific quantity, this specific purity"? Perhaps it was because Geller took Randi to court and won that you don't mention him? Or perhaps it is because you just can't help talking from POV, like so many of us. I would like to be able to assume good faith, but at every turn I am given good reason to remain skeptical about debunkers - especially with those that remind me about the need for good faith. MayoPaul5 22:34, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Please, Uri Geller is famous for making the football teams he tries to crystal-psychic-leyline-boost to succes fail miserably. The oil business is based on his own claims and the trial Geller won was for "insulting" him (lets bring up Gellers other trials instead). I have never heard of a "successful psychic" (except in making money or going on tv). Lundse 11:25, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Mm, quite. If there was a single verified citation of Geller's claims of oil prospecting, that might be one thing, but there never has been, other than Geller's naked word. And I admit to being disappointed; I dislike exhortations to show good faith in the same post where you mention Geller winning a lawsuit against Randi (and allowing people to draw the inference it was a suit relating to Geller's claim to psychic powers) without mentioning it concerned an incident where Randi had suggested that Geller had driven a friend to suicide. RGTraynor 11:38, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Lambiam, I totally respect your comments. I went against policy by adding my own page - a stupid thing to do, in hindsight, easily seen as vain. Seeing this by someone else, I would have been just as suspicious (now, with a few weeks experience). It was my very first edit; I did not trouble to read the guidelines or policies, which was clearly a mistake. On this AfD project, my issue was (and remains) that with all but one voter being on either the scientific or debunking side of things, with almost zero knowledge of astrology, even if their neutrality was unquestionable they are poorly placed to know enough about the people within astrology to cast a fair vote. Nobody goes ten weeks into a part-time astrology course without hearing Jeff Mayo's name. Many thousands around the world carry his diploma as their only entitlement to belong to a professional association. To even suggest he is non-notable is crazy. In fact the proposer specifically admitted he had made a mistake, after sparking off my accusations of witch-hunt. MayoPaul5 22:34, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

RGT: So where has Geller's fortune come from, then, if you know better? I rather thought that (sadly) money talked louder than words in this world; businesses don't pay out big money without big returns, inferring Geller's accuracy. I allowed myself to forget how you debunkers think when I made such an unsupported statement; smack my hand! You misquote me: I made no "exhortations to show good faith". That was ES2. As for Randi, one of us has got muddled. I thought the conviction of Randi was for causing the suicide of a Japanese professor, with Geller simply facilitating the prosecution. I certainly did not intend to mislead in referring to this conviction, as I never imagined that all the debunkers on this page would not know about the case. Last point: as usual the substance of my comment was ignored and brushed aside with this peripheral stuff. You may be able to fool the public with these strawman techniques, RGT, but they are wasted on me. MayoPaul5 19:30, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Just because Geller has money does not mean his services worked. How do you make that argument? Browne has made more money than Geller, by your argument, she must be the better psychic... And I read through your post, what was the substance? That we are not showing good faith? Would that be good faith towards Geller when he claims he can find oil but has nothing to back up that claim? Towards you? In that case you have plenty of good faith, jst provide somthing more than rehearsing Gellers claims and we (I at least) am all ears. We are skeptic in these matters precisely because we have never seen anything resembling evidence. Lundse 06:08, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

• You thought wrong about the Randi case, PM, quite aside from that it was a civil case having nothing to do with "convictions." As far as Geller's "fortune" goes -- although, come to that, he scarcely lives in the style that someone paid vast sums by oil companies would suggest -- he was a professional performer for a couple of decades. And straw man me no straw men; if you're going to cite Geller to back up your argument, you ought to be prepared to defend your selection. So let me ask you again: what verifiable evidence to you have (other than Geller's naked word) that he ever received a dime from any oil company? RGTraynor 13:36, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

• None. Neither am I basing any argument on Geller - I know very little about him, only that he is famous for being "a psychic", whether or not one accepts that appellation. Thanks for correcting me on the Randi-Geller case, RGT. Was what I read about Randi being fined millions of dollars also wrong? As I have no interest in either Geller or Randi, I didn't take the trouble to double-check what I read. The style he lives in is not evidential surely? I know of several extremely wealthy people who live modestly in terraced houses. As for evidence to Geller's earnings source, this is getting into the patently ridiculous because a) I am not his accountant, and b) I have no interest in him, so why would I bother even looking for any such evidence? You're the one who wants to know, not me, so you find the evidence. When you find it, don't bother me with it. The only evidence that impresses me is the evidence of my own senses (as the world is undoubtedly subjective) on things that matter to me, like astrology.

But then, this view will not surprise you, as I make no pretence to be a scientist or even a pseudo-scientist, nor to abide by the rules scientists set themselves. It is safer to abide by those cautious rules, I think, but one has to draw the "evidence" line somewhere, otherwise we'd want every loaf of bread double-checked for mouse-droppings and every organic cabbage for pesticides before we ate it. I know perfectly well that my bed has dust-mites, but if I had the evidence of it I might not sleep so peacefully. Astrology works for me, it doesn't work for you. Fine, I have no problem with that, although it does raise the question of why you and your companions-in-arms hovver around astrology pages. As a matter of polite curiosity, do astrologers ever come onto your debunking pages and tell you what a load of rubbish debunking is? That's a genuine question, not rhetorical. MayoPaul5 16:23, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, whatever you read about Randi being filed millions of dollars is quite wrong; it was a simple defamation suit based around Randi making a crack about Geller driving a friend to suicide, and the jury award was $2,000, which is pathetically small in a case of that kind. As far as evidence goes, as you will find is the near-universal case on Wikipedia, we either require sourced evidence for any assertion or for those assertions not to be made in the first place; any unsourced assertion in an article is liable to quick deletion, unless it is phrased as an unproven claim ("Many claim/hold the belief that X is true."). As far as your last question, you are assuming that I hang around either astrology or debunking pages. Neither is the case. I see no particular purpose to trolling pages devoted to pseudo-science, nor to preach to the converted in the latter instance. RGTraynor 16:34, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

What you report here about Geller/Randi is so different to what I read that it makes me wonder if we are talking about the same case. If we are, and if you are correct, then I have been seriously mislead. However, as I said, I have no real interest in the case, so I shall just keep my eyes open to see if confirmation or evidence surfaces either way, rather than scurrying around to find it. As for your "evidence" statement re wiki policy, I have already been made well aware of that during this past few weeks, and entirely agree with the policy, as it is plain common-sense. As for the last point, I appreciate you taking the trouble to answer the question, though it doesn't appear to me to answer the actual question I asked. MayoPaul5 18:11, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Hope it is okay for me to add a comment - I am a user of Wikipedia but not a contributer, and I thought my perspective might be useful. Quite by chance to the above debate, I did a Google search on Jeff Mayo today (after a conversation I had at the weekend about Astrology). I am unrelated to Jeff Mayo (sic!), and not an ardent Astrology fan, but I did want to know something about Jeff Mayo and his school. The article helped, surely this is the acid-test of wikipedia... so from my perspective... please leave it up! (Rob Machin)

Keep Jeff and Mayo School. Thanks for piping in. Lundse 07:23, 5 May 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.