Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Barton Myers

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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. the wub "?!" 16:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Barton Myers

Barton Myers (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Nonnotable bio. Looks like a resume. -- Mufka (user) (talk) (contribs) 02:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

  • comment hmmm, seems to have many thousands of google hits. But creator suspiciously called "Bartonmyersinc" :)Merkinsmum 02:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep but clean up - looks notable enough to me, but as you say it does look like a resume... ugen64 02:31, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep awards offer some notability, and the names imply they are major awards in the field.--Chaser - T 02:59, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak keep seems pretty notable although it does look like a resume. Also cleanup. Oysterguitarist 03:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. Article looks like a resume about an average professional guy, with accomplishments commensurate with millions of other average professional guys his age. Nothing notable about that. Also, his involvement in "notable projects" doesn't itself make him notable. I don't know about the awards. I know we're supposed to avoid the term "vanity page" in these discussions, but really now, there's clearly a conflict of interest here, and the article is written by an editor with a username that violates username policy. =Axlq 03:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. If we approve this article, we're going to have to write an article about every single person in the phone book. Practically every person who owns a business of some sort has won some kind of minor local "business award." This does not establish notability. All it establishes is a pulse. Some people are truly notable and deserve articles; others just have a job.Qworty 04:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete - I echo Qworty's statement; where does it end? In reading the article I see nothing that is remarkable. He is a mildly successful architect, but then so are the heads and executive officers of every archtectural firm in the world. None of his buildings set precedent or took architecture in a new direction. This seems like at best it can be used to promote him and his firm; but it really is not worthy of an encyclopedia article. --Storm Rider (talk) 05:59, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Plenty of press coverage makes him sufficiently notable, I think. Any relation to the earlier mayor of Norfolk by the same name? Grandson maybe? —David Eppstein 06:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Academics and educators-related deletions. (By Espresso Addict, not me.) —David Eppstein 06:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. I don't understand this area enough to make a recommendation, but the RAIC Gold Medal [1] appears a significant national award, and he's also a professor at UCLA [2].Espresso Addict 06:30, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Changing to Keep, per further evidence uncovered by David Eppstein. Espresso Addict 07:36, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep--Three full professorships, first Thomas Jefferson Professor at the University of Virginia, & Graham Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, currently Professor of Architecture at University of California, Los Angeles These appointments attest to his recognition as exceptional by his peers. Do universities appoint non-notable architects as full professors of architecture? I can't evaluate the intrinsic importance of the buildings myself, but the various professional associations in two countries can, and they gave him TWELVE awards for them. Or don't they know about what makes architects notable? Professional awards have always been accepted as the best evidence of notability in any profession. 224 News items in google news, as found by David Eppstein. (Some duplicate, but there seem to be about FIFTY unique stories) The NYT has about 10 different articles about his work. The Washington Post writes an article when he so much as leaves a project. "Renowned Los Angeles Architect to Receive Medal." -- Knight-Ridder.
But contrast: "minor business awards" ; "average professional guy his age", "just has a job" , "millions of other professional guys his age", "involvement in notable project doesnt make him notable" . DGG (talk) 07:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC).
Commentary. It doesn't matter if he's had a hundred professorships--according to established Wikipedia policy, being a professor does not establish notability. There are hundreds of thousands of professors in the world--we're not going to write articles for each of them merely because they're professors. That would be absurd.
The fact remains that this architect has never designed anything of note that anybody is aware of. His work has been entirely routine. And his awards mean nothing. I'm reminded of what Woody Allen says in Annie Hall about Los Angeles: "All they do out here is give out awards." Barton Myers' awards are a joke--if we're going to write an article about every human being who has won an equivalent mid- to low-level business award, then every real estate agent and gas station owner and Kiwanis supporter in the world is going to rate a Wikipedia article. That is NOT how notability is established. Awards should be the equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize or a Tony or an Oscar to confer notability--not just a local or regional mid-level business award.
Finally, news stories themselves, even if they appear in a paper in New York state, are not enough to confer notability. If they were, every kid who ever rescued a cat out of a tree and got his picture in the paper would rate an article here. That is never going to happen. A news story about Barton Myers moving from one state to another in no way makes him notable. Why not? Because it doesn't describe him doing anything notable! Millions of Americans move from state to state every year. So what? A non-notable news story about a non-notable guy doing a non-notable thing cannot be used to establish Wikipedia notability.
So there is nothing really notable about Barton Myers. He is just another guy working in an office. He worked in an office in one town, then moved to another town. He was honored with business awards that are on the level that any realtor or Quiznos franchisee might get. None of his projects are in themselves notable. Notability has not been established for him on any count. He's just another guy with a job. Qworty 07:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment. The average Quiznos franchisee doesn't get his new contracts reported in the New York Times, nor can a Quiznos franchise be parlayed into a professorship. And there may be hundreds of thousands of professors in the world, but there are not hundreds of thousands of named chairs at top research universities. —David Eppstein 14:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Comment. Oh yeah? Follow this link [3] to a New York Times story that is in fact about several Quiznos franchise holders. According to your "notability" "standard," (but not Wikipedia's) each of them should therefore have a Wikipedia article. You'd better get busy writing those articles! They will be speedy-deleted, just as this Barton Myers article should have been. One of the franchisees, in fact, owns three Quiznos--he's starting to sound even more "notable" than Myers! As to your point about the professorships--it's Wikipedia policy, not me, that rules that professorships do not convey notability. If you disagree with the policy, by all means try to have it changed, instead of arguing about it here. Qworty 17:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I know of no policy denying notability to professors. The absence of a policy is not the same as the negation of that policy. It's not WP policy that heads of major architectural firms must be deleted, either. Nor that people with "Q" in their names must be ignored in AfD's. We can make up all sorts of policies that don't exist, but I don't see why citing their nonexistence is relevant. It is policy that people with significant coverage in multiple reliable sources are notable and while not policy it's a guideline that professors with significant professorial accomplishments are notable, however. As for why a multiple-franchisee whose sad story formed an NYT article isn't already in WP: perhaps nobody but you cared to find it; see WP:WAX for my opinion about the relevance of its nonexistence to this debate. And anyway, we were talking about "the average Quiznos franchisee", and that news item suggests that you have picked one that is far from average. —David Eppstein 17:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Myers flat out fails notability on five of the six points you reference, and IMO on the sixth one as well. Here they are:
1. The person is regarded as a significant expert in his or her area by independent sources.
2. The person is regarded as an important figure by independent academics in the same field.
3. The person has published a significant and well-known academic work. An academic work may be significant or well known if, for example, it is the basis for a textbook or course, if it is itself the subject of multiple, independent works, if it is widely cited by other authors in the academic literature.
4. The person's collective body of work is significant and well-known.
5. The person is known for originating an important new concept, theory or idea which is the subject of multiple, independent, non-trivial reviews or studies in works meeting our standards for reliable sources.
6. The person has received a notable award or honor, or has been often nominated for them.
On the final point, I think we've shown that Myers' local awards in Toronto and other towns do not rise to the notability standards, so he fails on the sixth criterion as well. As far as awards go, I'm sure I can find Quiznos owners--lots of them--who've won local business awards, who've had their names and even pictures in the paper, and who teach a business course at a college. None of this, not even in combination, will rise to notability for a Wikipedia article. Qworty 18:03, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
I would argue that he passes very strongly WP:PROF points 4 and 6. For point 4, see the 20 items under "notable projects" in the article. For point 6, see the roughly 50 awards listed on his web site, maybe 2/3 of which look like they are at least at the state or national level, contradicting your assertion that his awards are "local". —David Eppstein 18:12, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
You have now shifted the terms of the argument. Point 4 has to do with determining notability for academic work. None of the 20 items you reference has to do with academic work. Thus they cannot be used to establish Point 4. As for his awards page, there are thousands of real estate agents who have similarly "impressive" lists of business and professional awards listed on personal websites. Such awards do not confer notability for our purposes here--we're not going to write articles about all of these realtors or Little League coaches or whatever. Myers would be a significant architect if he had designed even one significant building, but he hasn't. Qworty 18:23, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
You are mistaken. Academics in an artistic field such as architecture are often evaluated academically on the basis of their artistic accomplishments rather than their research publications. As for the hundreds of realtors and little league coaches that allegedly have comparable awards: I don't think the governor-general of Canada offers awards to little league coaches and realtors, and any little league coach would be happy I think with a single state- or national-level medal, but WP:WAX. As for "even one significant building", six of them are significant enough to have their own Wikipedia articles. —David Eppstein 18:38, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
You're shifting the terms of debate again. It doesn't matter whether colleges and universities think Mr. Myers is artistically a significant academic--every university thinks an "artistic" professor is "significant" or they wouldn't hire the person in the first place. What matters is whether Mr. Myers rises to WIKIPEDIA standards of notability, not a university's standards. As far as his awards go, the third party who makes the final determination here will have to decide whether the one award you cite, in and of itself, is sufficient to establish notability in terms of Wikipedia. But I seriously doubt it. Qworty 19:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Very Strong Keep, very notable person. Callelinea 14:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Bare assertion doesn't make it so. I see nothing asserting sufficient notability for a Wikipedia article. I do see a conflict of interest. =Axlq 13:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Wow. Named professorships at two major universities, plus awards coming out the ears and media coverage of his projects? Keep, and good job to David Eppstein and DGG for finding those links. Tony Fox (arf!) review? 20:23, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
almost all the references were there in the article when it was nom. for Afd. For my part, I just called attention to them. David E. found some impressive additional ones. DGG (talk) 22:35, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, call it a general "good job," then. =) Tony Fox (arf!) review? 05:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
Thanks from me too. But I consider some sort of search merely due diligence for this sort of discussion. —David Eppstein 01:18, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. The sources look good, and he seems notable enough. Bart133 (t) (c) 23:02, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Clearly notable enough as an architect and the article is detailed and referenced. Capitalistroadster 03:37, 20 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Possible Keep. Seems notable enough, but the links and references are in need of serious clean up. Uranometria 09:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment on SPA and sock. User:Blueberryman appears to be a Single Purpose Account regarding the Barton Myers issue. Also, User:Blueberryman has been accused by another editor of creating the sock User:Skippy30 in order to edit the Barton Myers article. See the warning here, at the bottom of the page: User talk:Blueberryman. And checking the history shows that the User:Skippy30 account was used to vandalize the original VfD tags on the article when this first came up for debate. Qworty 19:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
    • User:Blueberryman formerly had a different username which made his conflict-of-interest wrt this issue more clear, as Merkinsmum's comment at the top of the page indicates. But since neither he nor his alleged sock have commented here, I'm not sure why it's relevant for the AfD. —David Eppstein 23:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
      • The entire history of the article is relevant to our discussion here. The conflict of interest you refer to is vanity self-promotion, a charge which any and all sock edits further substantiate. This editing behavior undermines the case for notability. In other words, if Barton Myers were truly notable, don't you think someone besides someone at Barton Myers Inc. would've figured that out by now and started an article here? It is not against Wikipedia policy to edit under different user names, but this is a case of THREE user names being manipulated in order to establish a false sense of notability to the subject of this article. That is highly relevant to our discussion here. Besides, just read the article. After all this time, it's still nothing more than a resume in paragraph form. It's very crummy, lackluster writing that fails to sound notable at all, no matter how many trivial links and references are appended at the very bottom of it. Qworty 23:51, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Easy keep -- major architect. When top universities start appointing minor Pokemon figures to top chairs, then we can talk about Wikipedia's notability standards soaring over UCLA's. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 03:23, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Strong Keep with Significant Cleanup. The article is a mess - but that does not justify an AFD, nor does it diminish notability. I don't care whether he actually is notable or not - multiple, independent sources appear to think that he is. That's good enough. Best, ZZ 11:40, 25 July 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.