Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/David Boothroyd

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was KEEP. -Splash 00:58, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] David Boothroyd

I am nominating this article about myself for deletion as I don't think I make the notability criteria (although possibly verging on them). However I reserve the right to become notable in the future. David | Talk 22:02, 8 August 2005 (UTC)

• Keep I don't really want to argue with you about your own notability, but running "the most comprehensive election results database in the United Kingdom" seems pretty notable. Soltak 22:45, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
  • That would (if true) make the database notable. Webmasters generally don't inherit the notability of the web sites that they run. It's usually what else the webmasters do that qualifies them for inclusion of a biography. Kappa picked upon the better point. Uncle G 10:55:14, 2005-08-09 (UTC)
• Keep, published author. Kappa 22:49, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Significant as politician and author. Commendably modest too. -Willmcw 00:22, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually, even taking the autobiography (see below) at face value, the subject is not unequivocally significant as a politician, being only a member of a local government council, articles upon which are oftentimes deleted here. (See Wikipedia:Deletion policy/Local politicians for a discussion.) Many editors set the bar at politicians elected at a national or state/province level, or widely infamous failures to be so elected. This person has mainly only been an assistant to such politicians. Uncle G 10:55:14, 2005-08-09 (UTC)
• Keep. Notable for modesty, at the very least. But, seriously, someone should check out some of the claims in the article sometime. Do Brits really use his website? Sdedeo 01:20, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
  • All of the claims made in this autobiographical article (see below) need checking out before it can be stated that this person satisfies the WP:BIO criteria. This article has no non-autobiographical sources. Uncle G 10:55:14, 2005-08-09 (UTC)
• Keep. All schoo^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HNon-notability not established by nominator. —RaD Man (talk) 05:41, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
• "It is said that his birth was marked by earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, firestorms, the explosion of three neighbouring stars, and, shortly afterwards, by the issuing of over six and three quarter million writs for damages from all of the major landowners in his Galactic sector. However, the only person by whom this is said is Beeblebrox himself, and there are several possible theories to explain this." — Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Fit The Ninth.

  To ensure that this wasn't autobiography, with all of its ensuing verifiability perils, I checked the history, and was pleased to see my expectation confirmed that User:dbiv didn't write it ... until I saw that it was a straight word-for-word copy (done by 62.254.64.14 (talk · contribs)) of the autobiography on dbiv's user page. If the only source of the information on a subject is the subject itself, albeit via a third party parroting it, it is suspect. If the subject really is a published author of a book with a wide audience, then he meets the WP:BIO criteria. However, the article cites no sources and so far the only source that we have for this statement, and indeed for everything else in the article, is dbiv's autobiography. The comments above are unwisely taking the article at face value. No matter how we might trust User:dbiv it is unwise to trust any autobiography. We don't trust the editors who write unsourced articles about themselves claiming that they are world reknowned academics, business leaders, coolest bitches on the block, and the like. We should not trust a straight copy of User:dbiv writing about himself on his user page.

  Attempting independent verification, therefore, I find that the book, ISBN 1902301595, exists, and has apparently been read by at least one other Wikipedia editor. So it appears that yes, this is a published author who has written a book with an audience of 5,000 or more, and thus the WP:BIO criterion is satisfied. However, the article is in need of a Complete Rewrite citing reliable sources. Uncle G 10:55:14, 2005-08-09 (UTC)

• Keep--and perhaps dbiv could suggest some sources where we could verify this information? Meelar (talk) 14:55, August 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • I have already offered to do so on Talk:David Boothroyd. Incidentally I'm not the same David Boothroyd as wrote "The drive to productization" and works at the University of Kent at Canterbury, nor the same as is involved in the Bradford branch of the Campaign for Real Ale. I am not the Dave Boothroyd who wrote the syndicated article on the history of Joseph Day, the inventor of the two-stroke engine, although I am his son. David | Talk 15:02, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. I'm inclined to trust the user's judgement of non-notability, especially given that the book in question only gets 34 displayed hits[1] (several of which are Wikipedia and it's mirrors), doesn't appear to be available at major booksellers, and was published by an "online bookstore"[2]. Also, the article appears to be a screen-scrape of the subject's User page, making it (admittedly unintentional) self-promotion. Niteowlneils 23:02, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, appears to be significantly notable within his field. Hall Monitor 23:32, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete complete lack or rock and roll, and unimaginative family naming convention down the generations might lead to future namespace issues... On a more serious note, shame we can't just redirect articles on wikipedians to their User: pages, which generally do a better job of description and can be as POV and unverified as they like. Anyway, political researchers are not notable by default, nor are people who've published a book, there's many thousands of both. --zippedmartin 10:49, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
• Delete I agree with the above regarding redirecting to user pages, and also the intro by the subject himself concerning questionable notability. Betty perhaps, but not David. It is commendable that he elected himself for vfd. I am also not comfortable with the promotion of the election results web page, which could be best located elsewhere within wp if it is worthy. --81.79.16.164 13:31, 11 August 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.