Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/PublishAmerica

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 --JAranda | watz sup 05:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] PublishAmerica

nn vanity press. User:Zoe|^(talk) 03:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, almost without a doubt the most notorious and controversial of all vanity presses or-traditional-publishers-which-are-nevertheless-accused-of-being-vanity-presses. Gets 597,000 Google hits; if this is a not-notable vanity press, then it should be possible to show the other vanity presses getting many, many more hits than that. -- Antaeus Feldspar 03:49, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep It's mentioned in the article on Vanity presses, albeit briefly, and the Atlanta Nights article. More importantly in terms of nobility, it's been mentioned in the mainstream media, for example [1], and gets 39 other recent results on Google news [2]. --W.marsh 04:23, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy keep. There's no indication of why the nominator thinks this vanity press is non-notable. Furthermore, it pretty clearly isn't non-notable; check out Atlanta Nights, which is clearly linked from this article. Bryan 04:25, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as notable publisher with number of articles in the mainstream media including this Washington Post article see [3]. Meets WP:CORP. Capitalistroadster 04:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. The press itself is notable. Almost everything it publishes is not. --Tabor 05:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete While the subject might be noteworthy, this article is the mother of all edit wars. From the Washington Post article cited above: Feeling betrayed, a number of disillusioned PublishAmerica authors have taken to the phones, the mail and the Internet. They've filled hundreds of Web pages on writers' sites with their bitter sagas; they've complained to the Better Business Bureau of Maryland, the Federal Trade Commission and other law enforcement agencies. There appears to be no possibility of NPOV on this subject. It flip-flops between anti-PublishAmerica gripes by disillusioned authors and pro-PublishAmerica press statements. Wikipedia is not a battleground. Durova 05:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • So we should delete George W. Bush and a few hundred other articles by that logic? I'm sorry... that an article is controversial is not a reason to delete it, in my opinion. --W.marsh 05:30, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • False analogy: yours is a press war between two opposing camps who each erase the other's entire content as rapidly as possible. There's almost no dialogue on the discussion page except a little gloating from authors who think they've won a skirmish. And you, Mr. Marsh, performed many of those reverts. I wish I could defend the article. If the firm is as terrible as you apparently think then an intelligent reader could deduce the truth from a balanced presentation, as readers do with a few hundred other articles. Durova 06:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
      • What? I'm not sure what you mean. I've never editted PublishAmerica. I have editted GWB once or twice, but just reverting the obvious vandalism that occurs there. Where did I say the firm (PublishAmerica) was terrible? I said it should have an article here and that's about all I've said. I haven't stated an opinion about what I think of their business practices (I really don't have an opinion on that anyway). I think you're confused... --W.marsh 06:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
        • Nine of the last 50 edits are yours and you tagged seven of them yourself as reverts. Durova 07:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
          • To what article? I don't have a single edit in the last 50 of either article. GWB: [4], PublishAmerica: [5] --W.marsh 07:36, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
            • No, I can't see any mention of W. Marsh in the edit history of these articles, either. Durova, what is your point? AndyJones 18:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: "mother of all edit wars"? Either you're deliberately exaggerating or you've got very little sense of proportion. You also seem a bit confused: you yourself address the fact that the article could have a "balanced presentation" on the subject, yet instead of actually, I don't know, doing something towards that balanced presentation, you're arguing to delete the article based, apparently, on an unspoken and unsupported claim that the article could never contain a balanced presentation. -- Antaeus Feldspar 18:31, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep per Antaeus Feldspar. NPOV concerns are a valid reason to discuss and edit the article, not to delete it. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Apology: I misread the name of a respondent. Please accept my retraction. My deletion vote stands. The editors of this article make no attempt to achieve any NPOV consensus. External research suggests they may be involved in a legal dispute. The article is a waste of Wikipedia resources. Durova 21:52, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • What you actually mean is "I can envision a possible scenario in which the Wikipedia editors who keep reverting the edits by representatives of PublishAmerica which violate NPOV and of course Wikipedia:Autobiography might happen to be in some cases some of the same people who are bringing lawsuits against PublishAmerica. I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that there is any such connection but the existence of some vested interest which is it possible to imagine some Wikipedia editor having is enough to "suggest" to my biased mind that this is the true motivation of the editors that I oppose -- or at least mud I can smear them with. In any case, the fact that there is some form of dispute makes this automatically "the mother of all edit wars" (much bigger than all those Middle East articles) and of course, this means we should delete it because mumblemumblemumblemumblemumble." So what's your dog in the fight, Durova? Up above you said that an intelligent reader should be able to tell the truth from a balanced presentation, and then you proceeded to present wild hyperbole and malicious baseless accusations in support of your delete vote. What's your vested interest that isn't served by a balanced presentation that gets at the truth? -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:51, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. Most notable and controversial of vanity presses which received masses of press attention and discussion in writing circles. - Mgm|^(talk) 12:15, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. Extremely notable and vanity press, and since when is the existence of an edit war a reason to delete an entire article? Penelope D 21:46, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Very notable (unfortuantly for bad reasons though). --Apyule 09:14, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
• Speedy Keep. This article is dreadful in both its versions. (Compare [6] with [7]). I have reverted to the "anti-" version, on the basis that at least it has a dispute notice on it, and that we cannot allow a corporation to control the content of its own article. There is no real case for deletion, though. AndyJones 13:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep - rather notorious in writing circles, should be notable enough. NPOVing is not so hard as long as both arguments are included (there are various other pages where both critics and the company itself has a say) - Skysmith 13:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Whilst virtually every book produced by PublishAmerica is "nn vanity" (though we do have an article on Atlanta Nights...), sadly the press itself is not. Shimgray | talk | 18:51, 11 November 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 a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.