User:A Man In Black/Brandt

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These are my notes on the closing of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Daniel Brandt (14th nomination), in the event it goes to WP:DRV or is otherwise questioned. They're timestamped, but are written by working my way down the page, so often I ask myself questions I later answer. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)


I request that the community expand the precedent of courtesy deletions to a slightly wider scope: these examples aren’t world leaders and both of them have expressed to me by e-mail that they would rather not be the subject of a Wikipedia article.

Bear in mind that some of the information Wikipedia publishes about these people comes from small presses and date from an era before either this site or the Internet existed. To paraphrase one appeal, the individual expected to wrap his fish in those papers the next day and certainly didn’t anticipate how those bits of information could be collected and assembled a few keystrokes away for anyone on the planet.

I ask the community to replace these two pages with a template to the effect of “deleted per request of the article subject”, then Oversight the history and page protect, with equivalent action for the respective talk pages. I also ask we extend a similar courtesy in the future toward living persons who may be notable, but are neither celebrities nor criminals. DurovaCharge! 22:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm a bit familiar with the Brandt saga, and his desire that many early published sources that would be damaging to him if more widely distributed than intended. Does anyone address the quality of these sources? It pertains directly to whether our interest in accuracy and completeness overrides our interest in not harming the subjects of our articles. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep -- Daniel Brandt is notable per Wikipedia:Notability, which states that "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." The article cites much coverage of this nature in Daniel_Brandt#References. Furthermore, Daniel Brandt does not have any inherent WP:BLP problems that require deletion. It is not comprised primarily of unreferenced negative information concerning a living person, appears to be written from a neutral point of view, and does not exist primarily to provide publicity which is harmful to a living person, where the publicity was generated through no fault of the article's subject -- Daniel Brandt has intentionally become a public figure. John254 22:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
This is the crux of the old keep arguments: he's widely covered in passing in many sources, and fairly influential (as one can see from the sources). It's the heart of our interest in covering this person, although John254 doesn't address whether it outweighs the possibility of harm to the subject. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:35, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep as every time before. Meets every relevant standard. We're an encyclopedia, not a charity case. --badlydrawnjeff talk 22:24, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Not to pick on BDJ here, but I've ignored all arguments that said "We've had a lot of AFDs, stop AFDing this." Clearly, this is still an issue of great discussion, and this is the proper venue for that discussion, no matter how many times we've done this. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Article subject fully merits a bio for his life's work. This is also one of our better articles, well researched and sourced. It seems bizarre to me that the article subject is complaining about public attention, while simultaneously giving interviews to major news organizations [1]. There is no time limit to "notability". --JJay 22:40, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
This is compelling. The article as it stands isn't bad at all; the concern is potential and past harm, not current harm. The implicit accusation (also present above) that Brandt won't stand for an article he can't control is neither here nor there, as he's wasted most of the channels for expressing a voice on the article. 23:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong neutral ... I ... still am not really happy with granting the principle of a "right to opt out" if you're notable. *Dan T.* 22:45, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
This is interesting. What are the consequences of allowing borderline people to opt out? Where do we draw the line? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment As a nonconfronational soul who deals extremely badly with disputes (I've made an idiot of myself in several edits regarding this article and Brandt's userpage), I would like nothing better than to grant Mr Brandt his wish because it is my (biased) belief that it is the man's current activism websites that are encyclopedically notable, not the person behind them. However, I am forced to admit defeat against the ruling consensus. Indeed, any attempt to veer away from it would certainly be met with outright ridicule and disdain. The consensus will be Keep. This AfD is pointless. I'd vote Delete merely out of contempt but I'm sure they'd retaliate against me for doing so. --Agamemnon2 22:46, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
"it is my (biased) belief that it is the man's current activism websites that are encyclopedically notable, not the person behind them." An interesting argument, one which addresses the argument made by John254 by implying that the article conflates the notability of the man with the notability of his products or the results of his activism. This is a fine hair to split, but crucial, as seen in later arguments. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:07, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep He is notable enough for his work regarding Google and Internet privacy and a public figure (with the full legal definition of the word). The amount of AfD's for this is like the infamous Gay Nigger Association of America debates (remember Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gay Nigger Association of America (18th nomination) - and that was for an article that had been debated at AFD 18 times!! I just hope this isn't debated another 4 times... that would be ridiculous. --SunStar Net talk 22:50, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
    Comment: Brandt is a book binder, as described by the NYTimes, not a public figure in the slightest. And you bring up the GNAA, which is interesting, because that merited deletion in the end - so why does the sheer number of AfDs justify a keep? If the prior decisions were wrong (and there are new BLP policies) then why not delete? He's not famous. He just wants out. 81.62.34.32 14:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)— 81.62.34.32 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
The IP is exactly right, regarding the previous AFDs and GNAA. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment - I'm not going to make a comment either way, the guy is notable for being interviewed in the press rather than being impartially reported by the press, he's a rent-a-gob on Wikipedia issues for newspapers. Strip away the press coverage and he's completely not notable, there's nothing he's done that would get him into the press on his own. Yeah, by the present position of our policy, he qualifies for an article, but we shouldn't be discussing whether Brandt is notable under our policy, we should be discussing whether we want Brandt and others to be notable under our policy. Nick 23:12, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
    "Strip away the press coverage and he's completely not notable" - We generally define notability by available resources, so this is true for most articles. - ElbridgeGerry t c block
"the guy is notable for being interviewed in the press rather than being impartially reported by the press" - He's treated as a source of commentary in these articles, not a subject. This is an important distinction. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I have always thought this article should be deleted. Its existence is a festering sore on the face of Wikipedia. As Brandt himself said recently, we simply don't have the material with which to write a proper biography of Brandt. There just isn't enough public information. At best we can write a free "Who's Who" entry, and we're not that kind of project. Let it die. Wikipedia isn't supposed to be a battleground, but the fight to keep this article in existence certainly makes me wonder about that maxim. --Tony Sidaway 01:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
This is compelling, and goes a bit to WP:NPOV and WP:V; we cannot write a whole article here. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:17, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Further, the "not a newspaper" requirements refer to articles about living people notable only for one event. So if Brandt was known only for the Seigenthaler controversy or only for CIA HTTP Cookies or only for Googlewatch or only for NameBase; then that argument would apply. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
This article is indeed about a history of public activities, not a single event, making it dissimilar to some previous cases, indeed. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I would suggest also changing the current redirect at NameBase to being an article. This old version would be a starting point, though it needs heavy rewriting to focus on the company and not Brandt. Carcharoth 19:59, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
This seems like a good idea; we preserve the well-referenced info, while eliminating the article with the potential to harm as well as our problem of having an incomplete article. But how to do it? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. (1) Marginal notability: when the New York Times mentioned him in relation to the Siegenthaler affair, they said "Daniel Brandt, 57, of San Antonio, who makes his living as a book indexer." This is how newspapers refer to people they regard as private figures. (2) We're an encyclopedia project; we're not here to engage in these battles, to make people notable, to make them miserable, or to prove how tough and unbending we are. (3) The subject says he wants it deleted; its existence affects him a lot, but barely affects us at all, so his views should be given a high priority. (4) Inclusionism as an ideology is inappropriate when it comes to living persons, who are subjects of their own lives, not objects for us to contemplate. As a project, we have to learn when to leave people alone. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
#1 is absolutely key. NYT treats him as a private figure, and here on Wikipedia we make a policy of following the lead of reliable souirces. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:31, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • ...To make matters worse, all bios run the risk of either being vandalized, or of containing information in the history that the person would prefer to not be online (sort of like the time you got a urinary tract infection, which is true, but you'd prefer to not share it with the world - and is your right to not have to live-down 24/7). If someone is famous - well, the cat is out of the bag. 81.62.34.32 15:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC) — 81.62.34.32 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Exactly. 81.62 is dead-on here describing why we shouldn't have this article; contrast with John254's succinct description of why we should. These are the conflicting interests in a nutshell. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:37, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

After about this point, any arguments I don't comment on here I either found redundant or uncompelling. I'm reading them all carefully, but much of it just doesn't move me. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

      • With fairness, I really don't think your comments on the legitimacy of having multiple AFDs are appropriate. I understand that you say you have not looked through them yourself, but I can succintly say what they encompassed: (1) SPA (probably Brandt) nominated it for deletion, (2) procedural (and weird) nomination, (3) Brandt again, (4) deletion based upon subject's wishes, (5) invalid (procedurally), (6) SPA, (7) SPA, (8) based upon "person does not want it", (9) another weird one, (10) (can't describe it), (11) one reasoning mostly on his attacks to Wikipedia et al., (12) non-notable, (13) procedural (after the Daniel Brandt wheel war). Okay, so now that I say that, please explain how this nomination is like any of those. I certainly don't think that it is. It is a nomination based upon the BLP policy, not the notability guideline. This is, essentially, a completely different AFD because it is based upon a completely different reason than any of the previous 13. So again, I ask, how is it fair to base anything upon the existence of the thirteen previous AFDs? --Iamunknown 00:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
A personal note: my nomination wasn't weird, it was for someone who didn't know how to make an AFD. *sniff* - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:40, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete - per the wishes of the subject and the fact that most of the so-called "references" are scarcely relevant to Brandt and only mention him in passing. A partially notable figure (does he have any kids? Parents? Is he married? Was he hatched? Don't we know?) who will be dead, buried, and completely forgotten about in 30 years - even on Wikipedia. As such, his wishes should be taken into account. This is not a key article of any sort. Moreschi Talk 08:36, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, the more I think about this, the more silly I think the article is. If a Martian saw this article, he'd think Mr Brandt had been hatched from an egg. Assuming he hasn't (well, he may have, I haven't got a reliable source to the contrary), I find it very strange that we have an article on someone when the article says virtually nothing about the first couple chunks of his life and includes no personal information whatsoever. No parents? Born when? Where? No kids? No wife? No education? This is not a biography here, it's a mini-documentary on someone who doesn't like Google/Wikipedia. Which is not, really, what Wikipedia is for. Moreschi Talk 14:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
Moreschi highlights the fact that we cannot have a complete article. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
  • More seriously - if you must persist in being ridiculous keep the damned article, then remove the meta-tags so that it doesn't come up first in Google and therefore be the first thing that anyone reads about this private person. 81.62.11.85 14:59, 11 June 2007 (UTC)— 81.62.11.85 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
Since I haven't noted it yet, I was sure pretty much from the beginning that 81.62 is Brandt himself. It may not, but I've pretty much assumed that that IP's user has Brandt interests at heart, if he or she is not Brandt himself. This isn't really a problem for me, because Brandt's interests are at the heart of the argument to delete. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Draft close

I think I've arrived at a solution. We have a handful of conflicting interests, namely:

  1. Brandt's activities are subjects of significant commentary, and as such should be covered in this encyclopedia.
  2. This article causes Brandt distress, largely because of previous and potential coverage of minor things he'd rather not have discussed in public but which have been mentioned in minor self-published publications Brandt has mostly tried to bury. (I'm aware of some examples but I won't be mentioning them here out of respect for Brandt; they're strictly comparable to the urinary tract infection example given by 81.62.) The potential for vandalism is also a factor, but a lesser one; any WP article can be vandalized.
  3. This article cannot hope to be complete, due to incomplete coverage in the sources, which largely treat him as a private figure. "Daniel Brandt, 57, of San Antonio, who makes his living as a book indexer" in NYT is a prime example.

I feel this compels us not to treat Brandt as a biography subject. What then, do we do about our first interest, completeness? We merge this info to the subjects we want to cover, then redirect this article somewhere. (I suggest Namebase, if that is sufficient for an article, otherwise Google Watch. This may merit later discussion, and Talk:Daniel Brandt would be an appropriate place to redirect it.)

This article's content will need to be merged into these articles:

  • Namebase (which will need to be turned into an article)
  • CIA HTTP cookies controversy (which will need to be turned into an article and may later be merged to another article or deleted; I'm not 100% sure it's worth an article on its own)
  • Google Watch (into which Public Information Research needs to be merged as well)
  • Criticism of Wikipedia (the info on Brandt's criticism there may need to be spun off into Wikipedia Watch)

To start this, I will be merging the info on Namebase into the Namebase article, and redirecting this there (and protecting the redirect, out of respect for Brandt's wishes). We will need to keep the article history at Daniel Brandt, because of GFDL concerns. Should Brandt need old revisions of Daniel Brandt oversighted, he can use OTRS or list the specific revisions on my talk page.

Hopefully, this will serve both the needs of Wikipedia and the needs of Brandt, while allowing us to move past this wasteful, internecine fight. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)