Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kenneth Montgomery Keillor

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 of the debate was keep. Johnleemk | Talk 15:56, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Kenneth Montgomery Keillor

This article has been created and deleted several times, but never put through afd. Could afd voters decide once and for all if this is encyclopedic content please. --nixie 04:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I should also add the article was written by its subject, so if kept it needs fact check and NPOVing.--nixie 04:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

• Weak Keep. I'm not 100% convinced that he's "notable enough" (whatever that means), but in a borderline case, I'd prefer that we let the article stay. -Rholton 04:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • It usually means that the subject satisfies one or more of our Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies. In this case, as with other autobiographies (Looking at earlier versions of this article, that are written in the first person by the same author, confirms what Petaholmes says about this having been written by its subject.), that means verifying the information supplied using sources other than the subject. If it turns out that there is independent corroboration that this person is indeed a published author of three widely read books (at least one of which is also the subject's own autobiography, it is claimed), then this person satisfies those criteria. However, Amazon doesn't have them listed, and whilst ABC Bookworld does, it tells us that they are published by "The Punks Entertainment". Given that that is the name of the subject's own web site, it appears that these books were either published by a vanity press or self-published. The subject certainly fails to satisfy the criteria for politicians even according to this autobiography, having apparently never actually won an election (see also Freedom Party of British Columbia). Uncle G 05:22, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
    • It turns out that at least two of the books are autobiographies. Uncle G 04:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. I'd say the fact that neither keillor.ca nor the punks.com have any Alexa traffic data, and that his name only shows up on a Google search 413 times mostly due to the apparent hoarding he does of his websites all over the internet, means he isn't notable enough for Wikipedia...or at least that's my vote. JHMM13 (T | C) 05:06, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, since UncleG has done the hard work, there in nothing encyclopedic about a self-publishing falied political candidate.--nixie 05:42, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete some claims to notability but not nearly enough to meet WP:BIO. Besides, "I know virtually every Postmaster in B.C. and Alberta and you are the most articulate Postmaster I have met across fully two provinces" could possibly go on BJAODN. Capitalistroadster 06:09, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - POV nn hero worship. The newspaper clippings cited above are insufficient to indicate otherwise. It doesn't help that the nomination seems vandalized. B.Wind 06:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as non-notable. Speedy delete and protect if recreated. -- Kjkolb 08:16, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep on the basis of his founding a political party moreso than the other material. Needs clean-up. Once someone enters politics that makes them fair game to be featured in an encyclopedia, etc. 23skidoo 14:05, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep as a public figure. (And is this AfD history ever a mess...original nominator obscurred by unsigned comments at th top, and some discussion has been removed.) CarbonCopy 22:07, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep. He's notable, he gets 33,000 Google hits by my count. He's verifiable. The article, as it stands, is an abysmal mess - but that's a matter for cleanup not deletion. Ifnord 23:13, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Counting Google hits is not research. One must actually read the pages that Google finds. If you found a source of information about this person that isn't from the person himself with your Google search, please tell us what it is. The things that Google turns up for me are either things sourced directly from the subject or things that provide nothing more about the subject than what we already have in British Columbia general election, 2005 and Freedom Party of British Columbia. If you didn't find such a source, please explain how you propose that content for this article could be obtained and verified, other than by parroting the subject's (several) autobiographies. Uncle G 04:00, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
• Comment, this page has been deleted six times already. maclean25 00:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
• This is just getting absurd. Four or five different Wikipedia editors (including, for full disclosure, myself) have previously considered this article speedyable, and yet it keeps coming back. {{deleteprotect}}. Bearcat 00:35, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. The Tom 00:38, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete (again). Perhaps a protected redirect to the Freedom Party page. If not protected, the redirect can be easily reverted if re-created. --maclean25 05:19, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. I have re-written it to bring it up to Wikipedia standards. Please review the article and reconsider your vote. He founded a minor political party, he has written books, and he was a postmaster! (Well, two out of three make him worthy of a bio here.) I have deleted all of the adulatory quotations, which have no place here. The books are legitimate: see B.C Bookworld author profile. Ground Zero | t 18:24, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Valiant attempt. The main contributor to the page has been User:70.69.206.159 who is Keillor himself. From what I see there is nothing partcularly notable about him outside the political party thing (the books at best put me into the neutral column). Since the political party seems to be based around his views and opinions much of his bio should be in the party's article. I still feel it is best to concentrate on the party's article than this one. Also, I'd like to point you to Wikipedia:Canadian wikipedians' notice board/Articles to improve#Articles to clean-up for a whole list that you can put those clean-up skills to work on. --maclean25 06:03, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete and make a protected Redirect to Freedom Party of British Columbia. I would say Merge, but (1) that's work for somebody and (2) it just means that that article will become the subject of hijinks. Look, they guy ran for office twice, got 217 votes (1.5%) and then 195 votes (1%). That's just... my dog could do that. Besides that, who needs it? Who needs all the nonsense associated with this? Having to deal with this guy makes Wikipedia weaker by diverting resources that could be used on improving real articles. Herostratus 19:40, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
• Response: He appears to meet the following criterion for inclusion: "Published authors, editors, and photographers who have written books with an audience of 5,000 or more or in periodicals with a circulation of 5,000 or more." While we don't know that his books have sold that many, nor do we know that they have not. The fact that he has published three books that are included in the National Library of Canada, and that he has a profile on BC Bookworld as noted above, suggests to me that he meets the criterion. The fact that the article has been subject to vandalism is not, to me, a valid criterion for deletion. The Canada article is vandalized frequently, too. Vandalism can be addressed through page protection if necessary. I note also that his recent edits have not been vandalism. I think, and I may be wrong, that he is starting to get what this is about. Ground Zero | t 13:53, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

National Library of Canada

[http://amicus.nlc-bnc.ca/aaweb-bin/aamain/itemdisp?sessionKey=999999999_142&l=0&lvl=1&v=0&itm=17478683&rt=1&bill=1

NAME(S):*Keillor, Kenneth Montgomery, 1953-

        TITLE(S): Post mortem : an affidavit, a resume, an autobiography 
                   / by Kenneth Montgomery Keillor
       PUBLISHER: Abbotsford, B.C. : K.M. Keillor Pub., c1996.
     DESCRIPTION: 1 v. (unpaged) : ill. ; 29 cm.

         NUMBERS: Canadiana:  980054370    
                  ISBN:  0968140602
  CLASSIFICATION: LC Class no.:  HE6654*
                  Dewey:  383 13]

[http://amicus.nlc-bnc.ca/aaweb-bin/aamain/itemdisp?sessionKey=999999999_142&l=0&lvl=1&v=0&itm=20658240&rt=1&bill=1

NAME(S):*Keillor, Kenneth Montgomery, 1953-

        TITLE(S): The clawing tree : an autobiography / Kenneth 
                   Montgomery Keillor
       PUBLISHER: Abbotsford, BC : K.M. Keillor Pub., 1999.

         NUMBERS: Canadiana:  999005596    
                  ISBN:  0968140661 : $69.95
  CLASSIFICATION: LC Call no.:  FC3849 A32 Z49 1999
                  Dewey:  971.1/04/092 21]

        SUBJECTS: Keillor, Kenneth Montgomery, 1953-
                  British Columbia--Biography

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.