Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roberta Beach Jacobson (second nomination)

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 keep. Proto::► 00:23, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roberta Beach Jacobson

Roberta Beach Jacobson (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

Notability is at best borderline. The sentence of Wikipedia:Notability (people) which concerns authors reads: Published authors, editors and photographers who received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work. The page certailny proves that she is published, but the only two reviews it refers to are for Lonely Planet books to which she was one contributor. Thus, for now, I think she fails the guidelines.

The other reason for relisting is due to some of the problems with Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Roberta Beach Jacobson, the first nomination. As discussed at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Suite101.com, Rough/Youtrue's votes validity are debateable given that they have both contributed to the same ezines as Jacobson and were together when voting. Though there's no reason to claim that this was a deliberate attempt to subvert the system, it certainly calls into question the validity of a the debate as a whole. --Robdurbar 11:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep she's contributed to a lot of stuff, and many of them have independent reviews. I agree that her notability is marginal, but personally I'm in favour of keeping marginal cases, particularly of people who are still working, as their notability is only likely to increase. JulesH 12:16, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep but cleanup and format --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 15:30, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
• Delete I've reviewed Ms. Jacobson's bio and Wiki's standards for inclusion and I still don't see this article's merit. WP:Bio suggests that a person should have "made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field." In addition, an author should have, "received multiple independent reviews of or awards for their work." How does Jacobson stack up against these standards? She edited her husband's failed ezine, Kafenio, for a couple of years before it went under. This publication was never ranked in Alexa's top 100,000 sites and its notability is also disputed. She also contributed short articles to Lonely Planet and Chicken Soup for the Dieter's Soul. (For her discussion of this experience see YouTrue's Blog). All this put together does not merit notability. As far as JulesH's comments above about keeping marginal cases, if this lower standard is applied broadly then Wikipedia becomes a phonebook for this human race. Why not let Jacobson reapply if she achieves notability in the future? SteveHopson 16:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep Major contributor to travel guides like the highly popular Lonely Planet. --Oakshade 22:53, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment - this highlights the verifiability problem with the article. How do we know that she is a "Major contributor to travel guides like the highly popular Lonely Planet"? LonelyPlanet's website does not list Jacobson under their authors' list. The article references only a single contribution to one LonelyPlanet guide. SteveHopson 23:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

As for the Lonely Planet book, I find that Lonely Planet website not as good of resource on their own books as it should be (I've had this issue before with them). With about 10 seconds of serching, found a couple of verifications [1][2] --Oakshade 23:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Right, I found those references, but its only to a single book. Meeting WP:Bio would require more than one article in one book. SteveHopson 00:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, they're major sections, not just articles. --Oakshade 00:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

It could be that you are using a different LP catalog than the rest of us because in most European ones it reads Author: David-Matthew Barnes; Roberta Beach Jacobson; Lisa Beatman et al as well as in the Japanese one imcbook.net VaclavHav 00:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, for reasons explained above VaclavHav 00:03, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, ditto. DGG 03:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• keep please does not seem borderline notable to me and should meet bio guideline Yuckfoo 04:55, 7 December 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.