Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Edward Hancock II

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 delete, disregarding the single-purpose accounts. --Coredesat 04:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edward Hancock II

Edward Hancock II (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Author whose three books were self-published by vanity press PublishAmerica. Article claims that he has appeared in two local newspapers and on two local TV stations, but nothing other than this very local coverage. His books have almost nonexistent sales on amazon.com, with SalesRanks of 3,009,889, 3,848,619, and 2,514,005. Google turns up 38 unique hits for his name plus any one of his books, the only ones of any note being press releases from PRWeb, which appears to be a service allowing anyone to make their own press releases, and this appearance on a local news station's website. I see nothing in the article, Google results, or SalesRanks indicating that this author has any following beyond his local area. -Elmer Clark 06:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Delete Probably should have been tagged for sources required. The claims to the interviews don't actually provide anything that allows people to look them up so they are totally unverifiable. Nothing in this article is verifiable except for the fact that he has published some books (as we all know this doesn't make one notable). All other information is completely un verifiable. The overwhelming majority of the text must have been created from someone with a COI, how the details could be known without a published source is unbelievable.--Dacium 07:21, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Delete, tagging for sources would have been better than first nominating it for AfD and then ask for sources, as stands totally unverifiable so a bio of a living person leaves no choice. If non-trivial verifiable sources are added by end of this AfD change to KEEP Alf photoman 13:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, I don't think this person would be notable even if the alluded-to TV and newspaper sources were provided. -Elmer Clark 21:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• Conditional Keep I would say keep only if the authors were to cite the specifics of the TV and news coverage in the reference section, and limit the text of the article to the verifiable source material, with limited autobiographic information to fill-in the blanks (e.g., subject's webpage). This is now a vanity/promotional for the subject's products and POV, which does not belong at WP. --Kevin Murray 19:30, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - fails WP:V -- Whpq 20:10, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - No notability outside his own imagination. The Boy that time forgot 00:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep it - I don't see what the problem is with the sources. The list of links goes to his confirmed myspace page and to his own page at tripod.com. Other websites such as other small press authors also link to his websites. Vanity presses charge for payment. As PublishAmerica does not charge fees they can not be considered a VANITY press by definition, therefore this argument is moot. Small press publisher, yes. Author Mill, absolutely. But not a vanity press. Deleting it on this criteria is false and in bad faith. The author has received recognition from Midwest Book Review on amazon.com And has also won a contest sponsored by writer's digest.com in 2004 (http://www.writersdigest.com/contests/your_chronicle_previous.asp?id=153) Rankings on amazon.com are subjective and unverifiably changing all the time. I have personally seen Edward's amazon.com ranking break past 100,000, which is not an easy feat for a virtual unknown. A ranking of 3,000,000 now simply means his book has been out for over a year and sales are slowing down. His rank on barnes and noble's website is still higher than many of Dean Koontz's books. Are we going to delete Dean Koontz now? His association with a publisher of ill repute (Publish America) does not reflect on his talent. Unless we have personally read his works (and I have. I enjoy it!) We should not assume he lacks talent simply by the association with his publisher. Most of the stuff in his "bio" comes from his own webpage, a link for which appears on this page. We can confirm he has spina bifida and has struggled with pituitary cancer. We can confirm he's the writer of the books as it lays out on this page. We can also confirm he currently lives in the East Texas area because there are several press releases from PRWEB.COM that cite book signings in the East Texas towns of Longview and Tyler. He has also recently started a blog on his amazon.com listing for In The Breath of God. And I have heard he's on blogger.com. (http://edwardhancockii.blogspot.com/) I can't confirm this is him though. We have an article on Michelle Shocked who is also from the town of Gilmer, TX. I have never heard of her. Don't know who she is. She's not a celebrity to me. Celebrity is as celebrity does. Just because he's not known in your circles doesn't make him not known. Obviously some fan out there thought he was worth writing a story about. Maybe the story isn't in his books but in all he's overcome to write those books. As a trained investigative journalist, I believe in looking deeper. And my cousin is a technician for Channel 56 and confirmed meeting Edward on the day of his interview. If you go to KETK's website, you will see a listing for Edward's book. They only put a listing up after the author has been interviewed. Everyone started out small. Even Stephen King wasn't born a prolific writer. The Eagles were once a "band" of misfits hanging out on the college campus of UNT. Country Music Legend Neil McCoy once played bars and clubs all across Longview, Tyler and Carthage. Encyclopedias aren't supposed to contain knowledge about things people know about. Encyclopedias are meant to INCREASE one's knowledge. I learned about Michelle Shocked. Maybe some of the naysayers can learn about Edward Hancock II. Maybe someone looking for a way to inspire their disabled child to do better in school can point to this article and say "Look at what he's overcome." Anyone that votes to delete this article simply because they haven't heard of this man might as well delete half of the encyclopedia. Because apparently you only want to share knowledge you've already acquired. I say leave it up so that people can learn about a very strong person who continues to overcome adversity after adversity and is creating quite a buzz on the internet. So what if most of it's local. Throw a pebble in a pond. How do the ripples form? First small, locally. Then wider and wider until they reach the far edges of the pond. Perhaps Wikipedia will be somewhat responsible for the ripples of Edward Hancock II reaching farther and wider. Is that not a great thing?

Here are some links where his name appears that are not through PRWEB, his myspace and what not:

http://samantha-lj.livejournal.com/ (Samantha Branham, another self-published author mentions Edward in her live journal entries. She says she will be hosting a book signing with him. )

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/butt_monkey (As humorous as this may be, this wiktionary article cites Edward’s book SPLINTERED SOULS using the word BUTT MONKEY. If it’s being CITED as a source for something, that should lend credence to it’s value, thereby giving credibility to the man who wrote it.)

http://www.gottawritenetwork.com/gwnreviewclipboard.html (Gotta write Network has asked to receive a copy of Edward’s Book in order to review it.)

http://www.freewebs.com/readmorebooks/inspirational.htm

http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?action=info&ring=publishing (He’s number 28 in the small press web ring.)

http://home.bellsouth.net/p/s/community.dll?ep=87&subpageid=231729&ck= (Joyce Ann Edmondson’s Christian Family Reading and Resources endorses the book and lists his page as being “under construction.”)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-publishing (This from your OWN website!) Self-published works that find large audiences tend to be rare exceptions, and are usually the result of self-promotion. However, many works now considered classic were originally self-published, including the original writings of William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce. · The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield · The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer · What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles · In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters · Eragon by Christopher Paolini · The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans · Invisible Life by E. Lynn Harris (You can also add Edgar Allan Poe and John Grisham to this list. Grisham’s book A TIME TO KILL was originally self-published and sold out of the back of his car. My uncle owns an original copy from the self-publisher. If you can find one, apparently it’s worth a lot of money now. )

http://www.parapublishing.com/files/pressroom/155-Self-Published%20Books.pdf

According to the website above, you can also add W.E.B. Dubois, Dan Poynter, Deepak Chopra, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Zane Grey, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, D.H. Lawrence, Stephen Crane, Mark Twain and many others.

http://www.selfpublishingresources.com/Booknews.htm

(You might be interested in reading true statistics on Self-publishing. )

Also, an article in a November or December, 2006 issue of the Dallas Morning News stated that 25 percent of the books released in 2005 were self-published. This statistic was up from 7 percent the year before. If this trend continues, there’s no telling what it will be once the 2006 numbers are crunched.

If anyone wishes to verify it further, links to his HOMEPAGE and page on myspace.com have been provided with the article. A reader's own laziness and refusal to click on a SOURCE link is not reason to cite poor sources. The information was obviously gained from these sources.

http://www.ketknbc.com/plus/bookclub/2584136.html

This is all KETK put up following his April 4, 2006 interview, but it's pretty typical to some of the things they put up.

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?s=4894281

This is the lead in to Edward's story that appeared on KSLA. There was a video of the newscast at one point but it has been removed, as is the case with many stories after they've been up a while. It is to save on web space, not a slam on anyone's importance or talent.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.127.179.10 (talk • contribs)

I think you have some misunderstandings of our objections to this article. First of all, PublishAmerica may or may not be a vanity press - although our article on vanity presses suggests it is, as does PublishAmerica's article itself. Either way though, the only reason I mentioned that was because some Wikipedians might consider publication by a well-known traditional publisher acceptable grounds for inclusion, and I was pointing out that this was not the case. As far as verifiability, sites like MySpace and pages by the author himself aren't considered reliable sources. And the reliable sources you do list, the two sites from local TV stations, do verify that he exists and did write these books, but not really that he is notable. And "I have personally seen Edward's amazon.com ranking break past 100,000, which is not an easy feat for a virtual unknown" is a perfect example of why this should be deleted - Hancock is a "virtual unknown." Wikipedia is not a promotional tool, and as long as he is an "unknown," he is not notable enough for an article. You cite other famous authors who started out as unknowns - they, too, would not have been notable enough for Wikipedia articles until they wrote the works that made them famous. If Hancock follows their paths and one day becomes a famous writer, then a Wikipedia article would be in order. Until he reaches the point where he meets the criteria at WP:NN, though, the community is very unlikely to support his inclusion. A lot of your comment sounds like you disagree with having a notability requirement at all - if this is so, the right place to voice those objections is at Wikipedia talk:Notability, although you're very likely to receive much support as the notability criteria are widely accepted by the community.

Hope this cleared things up. -Elmer Clark 22:05, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep it So because he's not currently as known as Dean Koontz you would just delete him? I have to agree with the person who said that Encyclopedias are supposed to be about furthering knowledge. About gaining new knowledge. PublishAmerica's own article suggests it's a vanity press? It's own article where? Here on Wikipedia? So the OPINION Of Wikipedia means more than factual definition of what a VANITY press is? VANITY presses charge money. PublishAmerica does not charge money. Therefore it can not be labeled a vanity press! It is not a traditional publisher. AT MOST I would call it a "small press" but yes I admit even THAT is pushing it. But the person above makes a great point. We shouldn't judge this person based on the reputation of his publisher but on the quality of his work. The links above (If you go to them) credit Hancock with a REPUTABLE win for a writer's digest contest. What other reputable sources does it take? You can't LINK an interview with his aunt Martha or his sister suzie. You can't link telephone calls unless you post the audio. I searched YOUTUBE but there's nothing I could find to link. You've had news organizations such as KETK and KSLA (Both of which HAVE articles on Wikipedia) cite Edward as being reputable. The person makes an excellent point. He must be a celebrity to somebody because SOMEBODY posted an article on him. Who is Michele Shocked anyway? Heck I read the article on Edward and I learned who the heck Abel Upshur and Thomas Gilmer were in the process. I didn't even come here looking for that, but I increased my knowledge. If you're going to take down everybody who is of local fame your list is going to be very short.

I also agree that there's more to this story than the content of his writing or the resume therein. Who among the objecting parties has conquered Spina Bifida, and Pituitary Cancer? Who among you was the only disabled person in an otherwise "normal" school? I believe his story is one that should be left for all to see. It's inspiring.

If you're going to wait until you feel like he's good enough to be in your elitist club of "I'm good enough to be here" You should change the name of Wikipedia to "The encyclopedia anyone can edit, so long as you're on the short list of people we think are cool enough to be in our clique."

He's written three books, overcome spina bifida and pituitary cancer and he's a giving and generous person who is busily involved in charity work. In a world where there are so many tabloid articles of Britney's Bald Head and Anna Nicole's Baby dispute, why are we even debating the inclusion of such a bright spot in this universe? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.215.28.83 03:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC) Eric (I'm not sure how to sign these things. I'm just following the instructions below.)— 63.215.28.83 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Please read Wikipedia:Notability. Surviving a disease or donating to charity in no way makes one notable, unless, perhaps, he donated a record amount or was the only survivor of some horrible plague. And the argument that "even though he's not famous, he should be kept because he is a great guy" isn't likely to hold much weight I'm afraid. And winning a monthly Reader's Digest contest isn't much of a notability claim either. Also, whether or not PublishAmerica is a vanity press, getting published by them is not a very difficult achievement. -Elmer Clark 21:49, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

• Delete non-notable non-refed. NBeale 12:39, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep it

Here's the funny part. It's not noteworthy that he's survived spina bifida and pituitary cancer. He won 125 dollars in the Writer's Digest contest (Writer's Digest being THE pinnacle of any writer's success prior to a "book deal" with a major publisher.)His book has been REFERERNCED here at wikiquote.com!! He's part of a growing trend of self-publishers and is using his money to fund the American Heart Association and various other charities, which is not a notable contribution to society... but if he'd sucked the president's wiener we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monica_Lewinsky

Apparently having sex with a politician would give him more clout in the wikipedia community. If I were Edward, that notion would almost have me begging for deletion.

And for those who argue there are no links, please use your eyes and your computers to explore the links to WRITERS DIGEST, to KSLA Channel 7 and to KETK Channel 56 as well as Edward's own MYSPACE PAGE. these are links to reputable organizations and credible sources all. You can't link CONVERSATIONS or personal knowledge. If someone who KNOWS Edward writes or edits this article, they can't link their own exposure to Edward.

and if you delete this article, you're going to have to change the articles on Kilgore College, Sabine ISD (Edward's high school) and Gilmer, TX itself. ALL of these articles link back to Edward and reference him in some way. Apparently SOMEBODY thinks Edward is noteworthy.

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.