Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/George Jay Wienbarg

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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 Delete. NawlinWiki 18:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] George Jay Wienbarg

George Jay Wienbarg (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Many claims of association with notable people, but I don't see anything that establishes the notability of the subject itself. WP:BIO, WP:COI. Vanity page. Douglasmtaylor T/C 01:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

DELETE Two totally nonnoteworthy movies, the kinship to Buffalo Bill (though probably a good story at parties ;-) ) is quite remote. jddphd (talk · contribs) 01:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

  • First, while the editor above seems to think that my relationship to William F. Cody is remote, there are only 10 living relatives of him. And, two, though many movies are non noteworthy, it was mentioned that one 35 mm, full-length dramatic motion picture produced by the Puerto Rican government (citations are in the article) it was being edited so it can't be either noteworthy or nonnoteworthy. Finally, I was the first (and only, so far as I know) individual to have ever trademarked the Hollywood Sign--that after having sold it and achieved over 500 million advertising impressions-twice! I have a very thick book with my picture in US Magazine, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles times among about a dozon world wide. I just need to work with an editor to get this material submitted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Georgewienbarg (talk • contribs) 21:03, 31 July 2007
You trademarked the Hollywood Sign and sold it? Douglasmtaylor T/C 02:40, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
If I read the article correctly, he cut it up, sold it, and later trademarked its shape and used that in selling some of the left-over pieces. But perhaps i have not got that quite correct. DES (talk) 02:54, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Weak keep Delete (see below) on the basis of the Hollywood sign story. I notice Mr. Wienbarg has also written an article on Hank Berger, who I believe was also involved in the trademarking of the sign, per this [1]. I'd be willing to keep if more sources are found.--Sethacus 03:00, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom. Also note deletion of previous iteration, also autobiography. Robertissimo 03:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Hmm - lots of speculation, little fact. It is unclear if being a descendant of Buffalo Bill is notable in and of itself - the author claims there are only 10 living relatives of him, but thats an unsubstantiated fact and its difficult to take out of context without knowing how many descendants there are, living or dead. I was unable to find any reliable sources to confirm that yearling riding was an regular event at the Cheyenne Frontier Days, let alone that Mr. Wienbarg participated in such events. The events discussed in the same section either involve notable things happening around him (such as the NAB award) or minimal participation in events, some notable and some not. According to [2] linked from Hollywood Sign, the sign was indeed sold to one Hank Berger, but he then turned around and sold it to Dan Bliss who listed it (presumably intact) on eBay in 2005. There are no indications that it was ever cut up and sold piecemeal, and google search for 'weinbarg hollywood sign berger" turns up 0 hits. Trademark #74229042 was indeed assigned to Wienbarg Enterprises, Inc, but it was a logo for "Hollywood Clothing" with the word Hollywood arranged similar to the famous sign. It is unclear how notable the clothing line was, but the USPTO notes that the trademark was applied for in November, 1991 and abandoned in July, 1993. Most of the sources in the article are vague: "Unknown Author, Ogden Standard Examiner", or just a listing of publications with no specifics (e.g. "Time", "People"). I looked for sources of my own, but Weinbarg is popular enough to muddy the waters, and modifiers such as "buffalo bill" didn't help. Delete for nearly complete failure of WP:V and WP:N, with a dash of WP:COI for good luck. - CosmicPenguin (Talk) 03:27, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Correcting myself - As per The link above from Sethacus, it does appear that Berger did sell some of the sign when he had it. Weinbarg's involvement remains unsubstantiated, however. - CosmicPenguin (Talk) 03:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete. First of all, notability is not transitive. Being related to someone famous is not notability. Second, this is the pattern of the entire article -- notability asserted through connection. Worked at a station that won an award. OK, but that does not make you notable. Worked on a special that included celebrities. OK, but same answer. And so forth. Notability for the subject is not asserted. Finally we get to a real claim -- being famous for selling a famous sign. If the coverage is there, there's a shot, so let's look at it. He and clothing designer Viola Park were featured in articles in Time ... guess what, all of TIME magazine is online now. Nothing for Wienbarg, nothing for Viola Park. Not all of the other publications are freely searchable, but Google News Archive allows searching the archives of WaPo, the LAT and the WSJ, at least, and there are no stories about the subject. This appears to be a false claim. Wienbarg registerd a U.S. Tradmark for the famous sign is another false claim, as the trademark is owned by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.[3] We can also search the US PTO database, and it turns up a trademark owned by Wienbarg Enterprises for Hollywood Clothing partially using the image of the sign. Since Hollywood Video among others uses similar imagery this is not itself notable. What we need are not just assertions of notability and importance, but assertions from independent third parties who as secondary sources we can attribute these assertions, e.g. "Clothing Magnate Magazine once named Wienbarg Retailer of the Year." We don't have any of that, we just have a person with a reasonably accomplished career in more than one profession who has failed to achieve Wikipedia-article-deserving notability in any of them. --Dhartung | Talk 06:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I've gone ahead and changed my vote on this. It's clear, through copious evidence, that Hank Berger was, at one time, the owner of the old Hollywood sign. After 25 years of keeping it in storage, he sold it to Dan Bliss, who auctioned it on EBay 2 years later. What is unclear is Mr. Wienbarg's role in any of this, outside of the claims he's made on his own website. There are no substantial links to any known articles and all the articles on the Hollywood sign that I did find (as I said, plenty), don't mention Mr. Wienbarg at all. Searching "Wienbarg Hollywood sign" only turns up Wikipedia and Mr. Wienbarg's website. And, as per Dhartung, being the relative of someone famous, few that there may be, doesn't grant notability, either.--Sethacus 15:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Changing to Delete. Appears to fail WP:V on many of the claims in the article. Notability would be weak even if all claims were suported by reliable sources. No supported claim seems to comne clsoe to establishing notability. If additional sources are added, and checked and they support claims of notability, my view might change again, but I rather doubt thsi will occur. I agree with Sethacus and Dhartung's comments just above. DES (talk) 20:07, 1 August 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.
NawlinWiki 18:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)