Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mike Adams (criminology professor)

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. The raw comment total is 9-5 Delete (discounting one Delete vote that is that editor's only edit so far). One of the Keeps is Weak. So looking at the arguments. It's clear he's not notable as a professor or as a book author. I think I vaguely remember the email incident. I don't consider that as establishing significant notability. Lots of people get their 15 minutes on O'Reilly etc.

The Keep argument come down to two: first, he's a columnist on townhall.com. townhall.com is a notable site, and many of its columnists are clearly notable. This raises the question: does that mean that all columnists on townhall.com become notable by association (and by the presumably large readership of townhall.com). It's a hard question, but my answer is: no, not necessarily. We don't know how many townhall.com readers read his column. It's just not quite the same as being syndicated in a newspaper. In Adams's case I don't see enough proof of notability as a commentator.

The second argument is that his career as a gadfly is notable. Again, I don't see enough involvement in high-profile lawsuits, protest demonstrations, publications, and the like. I'm not seeing a strong enough Keep argument to overcome the arguments (and greater numbers) of the Delete commentors. Herostratus 21:49, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mike Adams (criminology professor)

The article doesn't say why he is really notable and does not meet the Wikipedia:Notability (academics) standards. His book is #417,264 at Amazon [1] and is published by a rather obscure non-mainstream publisher founded in 1997 and may possibly be a vanity press.[2] He also seems to write on some sort of political blog [3] as well, but seems to not have written any scholarly articles that I could find. CEIF 18:05, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete , fails the professor test. Just zis Guy you know? 00:10, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Townhall.com columnists are fairly well-known, especially amongst American conservatives. Adams was also involved in an incident a few years back that made national headlines, and as a result of the incident, he appeared on big shows like Scarborough Country, The O'Reilly Factor, and Hannity and Colmes, defending himself and his values. I don't know where to begin to look for sources about that on the Internet, but those facts would obviously improve the article. Chicken Wing 17:17, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

 AFD relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks,  (aeropagitica)   (talk)  10:23, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom. The article poses the subject from the title as a professor, but the keep nom so far only tries to show Adams' status as a pundit. As an academic, fails WP:PROF guidelines for lacking academic awards, being recognized as a significant expert in his field by independent sources, lacking significant and well-known academic work. As a political figure, fails WP:BIO for lacking multiple non-trivial third-party articles. I find one story from a campus newspaper. No documentation for claims that townhall.com columnists are "fairly well-known", but I can say he has only 204 distinct ghits out of a possible 4,040 ("mike adams" "criminology professor"), and Alexa shows his website's traffic somewhere about 831,000th. Tychocat 11:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
• Weak keep. Notable enough. -Kmaguir1 17:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: not notable. FairHair 23:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete: not notable, nor academic. Seems to be vanity ad for pundit.54edo

Comment. This user has only one contribution as far as I can tell, and that contribution was to vote to delete this article. Chicken Wing 03:29, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete Not notable, per nomination and above. TV Newser 02:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
• Delete Non-notable, Lost Knob 05:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Adams is certainly non-notable as an academic, criminologist, or critic of homosexuality. However, as a persistent and active critic of public universities' speech codes and selective funding of student groups (as violative of the 1st Amendment), Adams is a notable gadfly. This notability should be emphasized in the article. I would give the articles' proponents a week or so to put that material in. Pan Dan 21:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Update. For example, a federal judge recently ordered Georgia Tech to change its speech code which had been alleged vague and unconstitutional. See Andrea Jones, "Insults allowed at Georgia Tech; Conservative students' suit alters speech code in dorms," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Aug. 16, 2006, p. 1D. Adams was active in finding plaintiffs to file the lawsuit. See Mike S. Adams, "The Fruits of Wrath," Townhall.com, June 30, 2006, and other columns by Adams describing his role in the lawsuit. I think activism like this makes Adams notable. Pan Dan 12:31, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment Do you have an independent source for this, ie. not this guy's blog entry? Bloggers tend not to be notable, and I really don't think that this makes this guy any more notable if it is actually true. TV Newser 00:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Response: The use of the word "blogger" mischaracterizes (negatively, for the purpose of notability) the nature of Dr. Adams' columns. Townhall.com is a high-traffic website, one of the top websites among American conservatives, and many of the columnists there such as Thomas Sowell, Ann Coulter, David Limbaugh, Walter Williams, Star Parker, Michelle Malkin, Mike Gallagher, Bruce Bartlett, Bill O'Reilly, Ben Shapiro, Larry Elder, Brent Bozell, George Will, Pat Buchanan and so forth are very notable, have their columns syndicated in newspapers, host their own radio and TV shows, or have prominently run for political office. I should point out also that a Yahoo! search for "Mike S. Adams" returns 991,000 hits, the overwhelming majority of which appear to refer specifically to the Mike Adams in question. Chicken Wing 04:29, 2 September 2006 (UTC):::

Ditto to Chicken Wing as to blogger vs. columnist. Townhall.com makes a distinction between its bloggers, who can be anybody, and its columnists, who (1) are invited to write and (2) do write columns, not blogs. Adams is a columnist, not a blogger. Pan Dan 13:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

That said, I agree w/ TV Newser that would be best to find sources other than Adams himself that talk about his role in the lawsuit. I am sure such sources can be found. Pan Dan 13:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Running out of bold comment intros: I don't know how important his role in the Georgia Tech situation was. I didn't bring that issue up. So I don't know if any sources exist w/r/t his contribution. Still, the fact remains, I'm not sure how a professor with a column on Townhall.com and hundreds of thousands of search engine hits could possibly be non-notable. How many inferior personalities have articles on Wikipedia? Chicken Wing 20:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

 AFD relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
 Please add new discussions below this notice. Thanks, Deville (Talk) 16:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment, I'm relisting this as the debate has evolved but not yet been resolved. I think that User:Pan Dan's rationale is compelling for keeping, and I would have closed it as a keep if there were any third-party evidence to substantiate the theory. That being said, I can't find any independent evidence. So, I'm relisting it and hopefully this issue can be resolved. --- Deville (Talk) 16:28, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I have to take back what I said about being "sure" about sources on Adams other than Adams himself. Using Lexis, I couldn't find anything on him in major newspapers or magazines, except that he was an expert source for The Christian Science Monitor in its coverage of the Duke lacrosse rape case.

However, using google, I did find this: "In his columns, books and public appearances, Professor Mike Adams has become something of a crusader for the first amendment rights of students," in Malcolm Kline, "The Bias of Blind Reviews," campusreportonline.net, Oct. 14, 2005, and other write-ups about Adams on campusreportonline.net. And, I think User:Chicken Wing's arguments as to why Adams is notable, are good ones. Pan Dan 17:23, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

• Keep - Seems notable to me. Flying Jazz 22:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Pan Dan, some fair claims to notability are made. RFerreira 19:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom and above. Moland Spring 04:43, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per Tychocrat. Lazybum 07:08, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom.--Peta 09:53, 14 September 2006 (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.