Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William H. Kennedy

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. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 06:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] William H. Kennedy

I am placing this article up for AFD at the request of its subject. As a result of malicious vandalism to the article (see OTRS ticket #2006090810001751) he has asked us to consider deleting it. In his own words:

Please express to the editors that I hate being listed on Wikipedia because of the open source policy which has caused lies to spread about me.

I have explained to him that we don't as a matter of course delete articles on notable individuals even at their request, but in fairness to Mr Kennedy I think it is reasonable for his request to be discussed by Wikipedia editors.

This nomination should not be interpreted as an endorsement either of deletion or retention: I will remain neutral in this discussion so that I can fairly report its outcome to Mr Kennedy.

--ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\^talk 14:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - Quixotic endeavor here. Might as well get this over with fast. I've nothing else non-obvious to say. My Alt Account 14:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Don't make me mention slippery slope…oh, curses and black pudding, there I go… —Phil | Talk 14:12, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Seems reasonably well known. Tom Harrison ^Talk 14:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, but clean up. Too many red links and external links for such a short article. If this article is a subject of frequent vandalism, it should be added to a vandalism watchlist. I haven't seen more than one instance, however, of vandalism. Bastique▼^parler _voir 14:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, As an admin who has been watching the article, let me weigh in a little on it's history. And there is a good bit of deleted history to it. The article's subject is apparently fairly controversial in certain circles, and has a number of detractors. There was an edit war a while back between a strong supporter and a strong detractor. The detractor was posting some extremely derogatory material, but would provide no sourcing that would satisfy WP:RS. Several admins (including me) became involved, the page was protected, and in the end the bulk of the edits with the derogatory material was removed from the edit history. The one "vandalism" that has happened since then was of similarly derogatory material. It was quickly reverted by Dawn Horse Warrior (talk • contribs), who is at the least a strong Kennedy supporter. So in the end this is not about normal vandalism, but a WP:BLP issue, with unsourced derogatory material. Still revert on sight stuff, but a different type of "vandalism" than most are used to. - TexasAndroid 14:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep We don't delete the Hitler article because he's not man of the year material --Stuartyeates 15:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment actually, he was Time's Man of the Year. ;-) Carlossuarez46 21:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep I'm sympathetic, but there's no way to start deleting entries on notable individuals. If he's been subject to significant vandalism, maybe semi-protection is the answer? TheronJ 15:19, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

In the non deleted edit war, the page was at one point semi-protected, and the detractor, who had a new-ish account was able to resume editing and warring within a day or two. So Semi protection is not necessarily useful in cases where the detractors of the subject are determined enough to wait out the aging of new accounts. As for it being "Significant" vandalism, while I'm sure Mr. Kennedy thinks that any vandalism is significant, looking in the history I see the one edit war between 617USA (talk • contribs) (Pro) and Suture (talk • contribs) (con) that lasted 4-5 days in mid July, and one more, from the 7th of September, that was quickly removed. I would not really call these "significant vandalism", compared with many other pages on the project. - TexasAndroid

The specific piece of vandalism that Mr Kennedy was concerned about was reverted within 30 minutes by another editor. I've already explained to him our unwillingness to protect or semi-protect articles that are not subject to persistent vandalism. --ⁿɡ͡b Nick Boalch\^talk 15:53, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

One thing you could tell him, on a positive note, is that this article is not going to be subject to missed-vandalism. It is on a number of people's watch-lists, including several admins, including me. Any of the stuff like has been previously posted is going to continue to be reverted on sight. - TexasAndroid 16:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Umm, where is the evidence that he is notable? WP:BIO appears to be the relevant standard. Based on the claims in the article, it looks borderline to me. An internet based radio show is a podcast by another name. I haven't succeeded in finding the reviews of his work to meet the published author criteria. Absent any independent reliable sources, I choose to be consistent and believe that deletion as non-notable is the appropriate outcome. (Note there also may have been an individual of the same name involved in Travelgate, but I found no reason to believe that it is the same person.) GRBerry 01:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per above comments. RFerreira 05:11, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete deletion as non-notable is the appropriate outcome. Dirty Frank 07:27, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, the subject's wishes about its existence are irrelevant. --badlydrawnjeff talk 10:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
• Can't we Keep and Protect? Least we can do if the guy is actually complaining about abuse. If the George Bush site can be protected from vandalism, surely an administrator can lock his site too? Legis 15:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

The GWB article is only semi-protected, not full protected. Semi protection is great against casual vandals, but not that useful against determined detractors/edit warriors. All it takes to get past semi protection is 4-5 days of patience, and the account is old enough to get around it. And that's exactly what happened on the WHK page back during the July edit war. Page was semi-protected, the detractor with the new-ish account waited 1-2 days and was able to resume editing the page despite the semi-protection. - TexasAndroid 16:59, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

• Delete. The reviews of his books are at http://www.williamhkennedy.com/articles/reviews.htm but with exception of Brad Steiger, all seem to have borderline notability. Being a frequent guest on talk shows and having an internet radio show are irrelevant to notability unless he's incurred significant publicity from reliable sources. TransUtopian 14:41, 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.