Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Piotr Blass (third nomination)

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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 KEEP (no consensus). TigerShark 22:48, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Piotr Blass

Piotr Blass (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This page has a relatively tortured history on Wikipedia, namely two AfD's and a DRV, as well as other discussions regarding behaviour linked to it.

This is a procedural nomination, stemming from Trialsanderrors' desalting of this article with the concensus of deletion review. This was done so a draft, written by Jreferee and now located in the articlespace at this article name, could be moved into the articlespace. It gathered a concensus to relist pending possible further notability discussion at this AfD. As this is purely procedural, I abstain presently, not withstanding the fact I may give further opinion if I feel it is merited.

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Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 07:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Further note: there was a not-quite-as-strong-as-the-unsalt-concensus-but-still-strong concensus that this probably passes WP:BIO, and hence relisting may be moot. Whether it is or not, I felt that there is adequate reasoning to relist, as some pointed out that they purely wanted it "relisted" to get a definitive answer at DRV, and that others were wondering about potential NPOV problems in addition to a discussion about notability. I have no opinion on the validity of either view presently, but they should be discussed, and here is a better medium than any other given what this article has been through, and how it has resurfaced (as a rewrite via DRV). If this turns into a snowball-style keep after a couple of days, I would encourage closing this early, given the rewrite is so dramatic. Daniel.Bryant 08:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Yet-another-note I've also unsalted Piotr blass following a request and following the assumption of article retention and that the deletion review would apply to any redirects. --Robdurbar 22:50, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
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  • Delete I can't access the provided links to the sources, but titles like "7 also-rans in governor's race chase elusive spotlight" and "PBCC president list final at 76" and sources like "Local section, page 3B" always make me suspicious, so I had to rely on my own Lexis-Nexis/Newsbank search. There's quite a few scraps (45 hits total), but if I restrict the search to "Piotr Blass" in headline or first paragraph, I'm down to three. They are:
    • "GOVERNOR WRITE-IN SEES EINSTEIN SOLUTION" ← Full portrait. (Palm Beach Post, The (FL) - August 27, 2006 length: 838 words)
    • "Saying he wanted to be a voice for the common people, write-in gubernatorial candidate Piotr Blass on Thursday appealed to a Palm Beach County judge to set the stage for him to participate in Monday's debate between his two more well-known opponents. " ← passing mention
    • "The candidates include Edward J. Foley, principal at South Area High School, a Lake Worth school for potential dropouts; Piotr Blass, a math professor at Palm Beach Atlantic College" ← passing mention
Blass's career as academic certainly doesn't pass WP:PROF. His best-cited contribution gets 8 cites (all by either Blass or Lang), the rest get 4 or less. One article does not WP:BIO pass, a handfull of self-cites does not WP:PROF pass, and the puffery doesn't help either. ~ trialsanderrors 10:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Rewrite appears to establish "notability." --badlydrawnjeff talk 12:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per Badlydrawnjeff; article clearly establishes notability and cites a range of sources; result of previous AfDs does not constitute a reason for deletion. Judge each article on its own merits. Walton monarchist89 13:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't believe anyone said as such (the last AfD applies), because this is a totally new article, hence the DRV decision. If I inadvertently said so in nomination, please allow me to correct it; I'm merely (trying to) apply consensus and common sense on a hot topic (at least, I hope it's common...). Of course, your statement could have been made in advance for anyone who uses the argument, but you never know over the internet :) Cheers, Daniel.Bryant 13:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete His candidacies seem to be the heart of the notability claims. A perennial marginal/write-in candidate for various offices, with the trivial news coverage that such candidates usually get, does not look notable to me. In an open democracy, anyone can declare themselves a candidate. Being taken seriously, or even getting serious coverage, is something else. Fan-1967 15:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Keep, there seems to be a weak assertion of WP:BIO Alf photoman 15:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per Fan1967. The claims to notability are extremely weak. As mentioned, anyone in the street can declare candidacy, and it is a matter of course that these get minor news coverage. As an analogy, we don't have articles for every minor political party that runs in every election, since it is such a trivial matter to get a party registered. Zunaid©® 16:08, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete This is the third time I am writing this. Blass is not notable as a mathematician. His math papers have low citation, including his pride thesis which has a total of four (on Google Scholar). His politics is even less notable, although I am not an expert. The warning is the long-long-long section about his gubernatorial campaign which ended with his getting "eighteen votes". That's about one line per vote. Not notable by any stretch. Mhym 16:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Blass received only eighteen votes and yet more than twenty independent, non-trivial published works felt Blass important enough to include in their publication. That is more than one publication per vote. -- Jreferee 17:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • So, is this saying how many papers cared to list him or how few votes he received? I once wrote-in my boss in mayoral elections. By your logic, this makes his "publication per vote" ratio in the thousands. Mhym 17:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - Per Wikipedia:Notability, a topic is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial published works from sources that are reliable and independent of the subject itself and each other such that there exists enough source material to write a verifiable, encyclopedic article about the topic. (1) The present article is a verifiable, encyclopedic article about the topic, which is the purpose of Wikipedia:Notability. (2) Since Blass has been the subject of numerous published works the topic meets Wikipedia:Notability. There presently are 28 non-trivial published works footnoted in the article. These three published works were mainly about Blass and by themselves meet Wikipedia:Notability: (a) Vash, Will. (August 27, 2006) The Palm Beach Post. Governor write-in sees Einstein solution. (b) Cerabino, Frank. (November 3, 2006) The Palm Beach Post. Fringe choices for governor want your vote. Local section, page 1C. (c) Ellman, Steve. (August 27, 2004) Palm Beach Daily Business Review. Case of divorced couple and their troubled teenager gives backers of Unified Family Courts plenty of ammunition. (3) I did review the AfDs and other items that went into the relatively tortured history of the topic. Blass' efforts appear to have been to get an article about himself on Wikipedia with little clue of how to do it. I think the present article will help reduce any behaviour issues. (4) It is not reasonable to expect the article to meet guidelines for which there is not enought non-trivial published works. There are no published works about Blass being a great fisherman or a great footballer; is that a reason to delete the article? Please keep in mind that the topic does not create the article; rather, it is the non-trivial published works that create the article and it is those non-trivial published works which are judge under Wikipedia:Notability. -- Jreferee 16:43, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Articles on people need a claim to notability to avoid being speedily deleted per WP:CSD#A7. This article doesn't even make clear what this claim is. Mathematician? Clearly he's nowhere near what our standards for academics are, per above. An "early proponent of the Internet who formulated in 1987 what is believed to be one of the first high-level online math journals"? It seems the sole source for this statement is Blass himself, as conveyed to a sympathetic Palm Beach Post. The vagueness of this comment (which "high-level" journal? Why 1987 when the internet goes back to the 1970's? Who are the prominent adherents who confirm Blass's involvement?) puts this almost outside WP:V and certainly outside WP:NPOV. A perennial minor candidate for various elections? There is a consensus that minor candidates who haven't established notability for themselves otherwise are at best mentioned in the campaign article per WP:NPOV#Undue weight. Clearly all articles minus one have the election as their focus and portrait minor candidates in a cluster ("Fringe candidates") for the sake of comprehensiveness. ~ trialsanderrors 18:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
      • The math journal claim is a bit odd. Certainly Ulam exists and existed, the earliest reference I can find is this USENET posting from 1993[1] which doesn't mention Blass. Per my knowledge of such things (yes, I go back to the bang path days), it's entirely possible that it was the first journal in mathematics available strictly online, but I would expect he would turn up in the electronic record somewhere if he were a significant part of bringing it to life. Given other odd claims in the article, I'm not inclined to give this claim the benefit of the doubt. --Dhartung | Talk 21:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I don't so much doubt his involvement than that the founding of the journal was a significant event. ISI Journal Report doesn't have a listing of it, JSTOR and ScienceDirect have one cite each to an Ulam Quarterly paper, Newsbank comes up with nothing. Factiva has two passing mentions in 1994, neither backing the claim that it was "the first" or even "early", and it's certainly not "high-level". The article is still 90% puffery, 10% substance. ~ trialsanderrors 22:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per Trialsanderrors and Fan-1967. Local publications and passing mentions don't seem to convey substantial enough notability to make it. There are lots of fringe candidates who get mentions in election campaigns, and sometimes whole articles about them in the local papers, but usually on slow news days. The published works, as Trialsanderrors mentions, don't do much to meet WP:PROF, either; to me, this just doesn't quite make it. Tony Fox (arf!) 17:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Really nothing more than a perpetually failing political candidate. While the litigation he is involved in might be notable, or have produced case law of significant precedential value in Florida, the parties to the litigation itself are not automatically notable themselves. There are thousands of important family law cases when one considers the number of jurisdictions. While there may be articles on those cases, unless the participants in those cases are notable for other reasons, there is no need for an article on the parties. If the case is notable, then there should be an article about the case, but we don't need an article on only one of the parties in the case. Agent 86 19:03, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per verifiability problems with the few claims to notability. --Dhartung | Talk 21:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Serial nuisance political candidates are notable provided that they get media attention, and this one has. Ballot box results are not needed to establish notability when we already have non-trivial media sources. Raffles mk 22:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Borderline notability at best plus a huge headache trying to police the article to prevent the subject from inserting his vanity adds up (no pun intended) to delete. JChap2007 00:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
"borderline should default to keep. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DGG (talk • contribs) 02:01, 26 January 2007 (UTC).
  • Delete unsuccessful candidate for office, non-notable. Pete.Hurd 01:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Normally I am inclined to vote down losing candidates. But crackpot candidates do somehow develop some notability by virtue of their perennial crusades like Lyndon Larouche and locally for me Tom Lingenfelter. I guess if I lived in Fla, I would miss him if he wasn't on the ballot for something. Montco 03:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC) Change vote to delete. I have thought about it and 16 and 18 votes doesn't really do it for notability. Heck, I won a race in a lot smaller constituency than Florida with 22 votes, and that doesn't make me notable. I must admit that the subject's email blast leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well. Montco 02:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per Trialsanderrors and Fan-1967. This article is much better written that previous autobiographies, however, I'm still not seeing notability as an academic or a political candidate. Delete and re-salt. Sarah 11:40, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

*:What does this mean? Pete.Hurd 18:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep. Just because A and B have never heard of C doesn't mean that C is not notable. This seems one of the basic misconceptions here. <KF> 19:59, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep notable nutjob, I'd heard of him up here in Maine because of family in Florida. Guy has extensive media coverage (almost all of it is negative). Sure he fails WP:PROF, but his extensive media coverage makes him pass WP:BIO.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 20:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Huh? Is Newsbank censoring its negative coverage? I can't find anything but one article plus assorted pm's. ~ trialsanderrors 03:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong delete Current biography does not describe Blass' career, only one of the very recent events in it. It is not a biography. Mathsci 01:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep per WP:Notability. This guy gets a ton of press. Look him up on Google! Look through Google News. Just because you guys haven't heard of him doesn't mean he exists. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 01:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
    No one is doubting that he exists, but his accomplishments as a mathematician are very, very far below accepted standards of notability, and his status as a notable politician is remarkably weak. Pete.Hurd 22:33, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Clear and obvious delete. The article itself is evidence of the man's non-notability. So much trivia. To write so much boring vanity with the end result of the plain evidence of the man's non-achievement in life. I could write a much fuller article on myself. I at least achieve a google hit of 25,500 compared to this guy's 620. Delete the vanity and spank the editor's bottoms hard. SilkTork 00:11, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, notablity is rather weak for a biography article. I would think he needs to run for several more elections before becoming a notable perennial candidate. --Vsion 05:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep and rewrite appears to pass WP:BIO based on this and this... Addhoc 20:49, 2 February 2007 (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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