Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Rochelle Holt

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. Veinor ^{(talk to me)} 01:34, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rochelle Holt

Rochelle Holt (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Fails WP:BIO, although has some sources, none are both independent and reliable. For example, the sources include the author's angelfire homepage, some fans geocities page, a general yahoo search cache. This may be a part of the main contributor to this trying to drum more notable alumni for Columbia Pacific University- all of the editor's edits are related to that or to alumni. I had prodded but the prod was removed, so here we are. JoshuaZ 03:12, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete [er nom, fails WP:BIO. TJ Spyke 03:20, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete: Fails to meet notability. A basic Google/Yahoo search reveals very little to assert the notability and all the sources are not reliable. Seicer (talk) (contribs) 03:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• neutral I removed the prod, in order to encourage discussion. I am not sure of the significance of the papers being in the U Iowa library. This is not usually done for trivial authors, but I don';t recall it every being discussed here. There does not seem to be any academic criticism of her poetry, judging by Proquest, & almost no libraries have her books besides a few of the most comprehensive collections , judging by Open WorldCat. DGG 05:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep - although the article is a bit POV in places, the subject appears to have written and published a fair bit, with ISBNs and everything. Having researched many subjects online for which there is a dearth of information, I am not prepared to write off something because references aren't able to be found online. It strikes me as a bit too substancive to delete. cheers, Casliber | talk | contribs 10:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. A rather cursory search of Amazon.com shows that her numerous publication credits are, in fact, legit. RGTraynor 14:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment a number of these publications are with vanity presses or are self-published. For instance, her novel "Mirage" is published by PublishAmerica, who are a vanity press. PublishAmerica will publish just about anything you send to them. JulesH 13:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Keep, I would have been happier if there were independent critiques. We have to consider that poetry is not mainstream anymore, therefore hardly mentioned in Sunday supplements which makes a plus. Creating your own publishing company on the other hand could be an euphemism of self-publishing .. hey I don't use any vanity publisher I publish myself ... so I'll stay with weak keep unless there is new evidence in one way or the other during this AfD Alf^Photoman 17:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete Publication of a person's work is not grounds for notability, publication of articles about that person is. In this person's page, all I see is a long list of publications by this person, and not a single one about this person. Additionally, this WP entry was created by User:Paul Hartal in order to bolster his list of (questionably) notable alumni of Columbia Pacific University, a defunct diploma mill. See Talk:Columbia Pacific University, specifically the section about notable alumni, for details. Skinwalker 20:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep seems to meet notability guidelines, with at least some mention of her works and a Pulitzer Nomination. Certainly a locally well known author.  The Steve  10:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. JoshuaZ, Skinwalker and Company,

Your continued call for the deletion of the article on Rochelle Holt is not only unjustified but even bizarre. Moreover, explaining the proposed deletion because, in addition to her MFA from the University of Iowa, she pursued further studies at Columbia Pacific University (CPU), [1], [2], is part of an orchestrated academic witch hunt. Since when is learning a crime? The defamation of CPU is part of the irresponsible misinformation phenomenon, which is described quite well, for example, in M. Scott Peck's book, People of the Lie (ISBN 0-671454927; Dr. Peck is best known for his best seller, The Road Less Traveled).

Your prejudice is unprofessional and should be brought to the attention of fair-minded Wikipedia administrators, contributors, as well as Wikipedia donors and in fact everyone concerned about the quality of the Internet, the advancement of knowledge and intellectual freedom.

The article on Rochelle Holt in its present stage clearly shows and documents that she is notable on several accounts and highly eligible to be featured in Wikipedia:

She is listed in the International Who’s Who in Poetry, London: Routledge, ISBN 0948875593, and her biography is featured at universities and literary publications. Please see Reference Section in article.

She received numerous professional awards, grants and honours, including nomination for the Pulitzer Prize. She is regarded by her peers as a major poet and a significant science fiction writer. A Reader’s Digest survey ranked her first among American poets. In addition to her numerous and well-received books, she published over 2000 poems in about 300 periodicals and magazines, and gave over 700 public readings at universities, schools, hospitals, libraries, bookstores and other places. She has originated a new literary genre within the category of the poem-novel, recognized by experts as a significant and innovative accomplishment. Her plays have been performed in theatres. As a publisher she has advanced the works of other professional artists. Among other things, she has published important scholarly work about the life and art of Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell as well as others and contributed to the development of literary theory.

I went through uncounted entries in Wikipedia, and I am amazed to see how many of them are basically just short notes about people who cannot really reach the level of notability as Rochelle Holt does, and nevertheless they are featured in Wikipedia.

Paul Hartal 19:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete No evidence given that she was ever actually nominated for a Pulitzer Prize (only 3 are considered to be nominated each year, though anyone can fill out forms, the Pulitzer folks have a strict definition of what "nominated" means). In fact I can't find the category for which she was nominated (small press prose category?). Amazon ranks seem to indicate no sales and websites look questionable. --Hobit 03:06, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, there are a tremendous number of links, but all of them I can see are either just selling a book, written by the article's subject, or other trivialities. Most are also not reliable whatsoever. I see no reliable source (let alone multiple) that could provide for a comprehensive article. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 04:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Weak Keep pending Clean up. Marginally notable if the claims in the article are true. (Hartal's arguments aren't persuasive: if Wikipedia had an entry for all 4000 poets in the International Who's Who in Poetry...) But the article needs severe cleanup to fix the WP:A and WP:NPOV and spam problems, there's a lot of resume-burnishing stuff in the article that's not notable, and it sounds from Paul Hartal (talk · contribs) that there's a systematic campaign to resuscitate fellow alumni of Columbia Pacific University through Wikipedia that other editors should be monitoring. Incidentally, Texas (among other states) lists degrees from CPU as "fraudulent or substandard", and thus prohibited for various uses under Texas law. The use of "fraudulent or substandard" degrees in violation of this prohibition is a Class B misdemeanor in Texas.[3] "Diploma mill" would violate NPOV, but mentioning the controversy on this page should not be an issue of BLP. After the cleanup to delete the self-published books and claims that might not be true, there may not be notability any more, in which case there would be a case for deletion. -- TedFrank 17:12, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete It now appears that the most notable facts about Holt, such as her "Pulitzer nomination", are invented. -- TedFrank 00:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Keep. She is clearly a notable author, though her main Wiki advocate hurts his own cause with his approach. The University of Iowa is a reputable source. It reports that "Holt was co-publisher and editor of Valhalla Literary Magazine through Ragnarok Press, which received three Coordinating Council Literary Magazine grants". It also reports that she was a "protege of Anaiis Nin". It also confirms "Her joint publication with Virginia Love Long in 1985, Letters of Human Nature, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in the small press prose division".[4] I would also point out that reputable universities do not keep papers collections for any random author. Clearly, she is within notability guidelines. Please do not let the mess of an article and the aggressive campaigning of a contributor destroy our perspective. Vassyana 17:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• NeutralKeep. The individual in question is seems to be a prolific author and is seems to be notable independent of (or perhaps despite) her affiliation with CPU, having been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Rhysling Award. Even if her PhD does not count, she still has an MFA. The article needs cleanup and a POV check, but the subject of the article is seems notable. I have begun some cleanup work on the article by formatting all the cached references per <ref></ref>. -- Black Falcon 18:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • Also, the argument made above by [[User:Vassyana|Vassyana] that "reputable universities do not keep papers collections for any random author" is accurate. Universities are very picky in such matters as they often use the fact of possessing such collections to promote themselves. A university like the U of Iowa would not keep a collection of papers by just anyone. -- Black Falcon 18:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
    • I have changed to "neutral" given the information presented in comments below. -- Black Falcon 06:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment. New York University has my grandfather's paper collection.[5] I'm hard-pressed to argue that Nelson Frank meets Wikipedia notability guidelines. We still haven't seen the "Pulitzer Prize nomination" verified. -- TedFrank 19:55, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Actually, according the the source you provide, NYU has a collection that includes some of your grandfather's personal papers. The collection is not called the "Papers of Nelson Frank". Apples and oranges. On the Pulitzer information, I have found she was nominated by a collection of academics, but she apparently did not become a finalist. Only finalists are "official" nominees by Pulitzer standard, so I struck out that comment above. Vassyana 23:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide the source for this nomination? It would help a great deal. Thanks! Skinwalker 00:03, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't think to keep the reference because it did not validate the claim to being a Pulitzer nominee in the functional sense (that is, one of the three finalists for the appropriate prize category). If you're still interested in the source, please let me know and I will dig it up again. Vassyana 02:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

We're way off topic here, but they are referred to as the "Nelson Frank Papers" on the rare occasions when they are cited.[6], [7] I don't even see any indication that anyone has cited the Rochelle Holt papers.[8] Are we really going to have an article for everyone Anais Nin wrote a letter to? -- TedFrank 00:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I would like to point out that there is no such thing as the "small press prose" Pulitzer Prize, and the name "Rochelle Holt" does not show up anywhere on [9]. This claim is likely to be a fabrication. Skinwalker 20:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Comment."Division" is jargon for the origin market. Think of "small press prose" as comparable to "mid-market periodical", as an example. "Categories" are the types of prizes awarded. Vassyana 23:29, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

That may be true, though the Pulitzer website does not list anything approaching a prize that fits these categories, nor does it categorize its literary prizes by market type (beyond fiction, nonfiction, and so on). More importantly, Ms. Holt's name is not listed anywhere on the Pulitzer website, even though they list all nominees after 1980 (before the text in question was published). Skinwalker 00:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

She would not be listed unless she was one of the three finalists in the appropriate category. Those are the only official nominees. That is why I decided to strike the Pulitzer claim. Vassyana 02:31, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Weak delete The sources and claims look good, but the Pulitzer nomination was in the "small press fiction" category (a very minor thing) and I am having a hard time establishing the validity of many other claims, despite such impressive sources as, er, an Angelfire user page. In fact, about half the references were either off-the-page advertising or did not actually support the statement for which they claimed to be references. Looks like the author did a Google search and tried to find a home for every link. I find it really hard to accept this author's contention that a self-published author with with fewer than 200 unique Googles is a titan of the literary world. Guy (Help!) 22:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Pulitzer nomination was in the "small press fiction" category (a very minor thing) A non-existent thing, actually: they don't categorize that way. Fiction, Poetry, General Non-fiction, etc: very broad categories, really, and nothing to do with publication size. Even their journalism awards don't do that. --Calton | Talk 04:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. The resume-inflation of the Pulitzer claim and the vanity-press publication definitely tripped my nonsense detectors.--Calton | Talk 04:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Note: I am moving this keep comment by an IP user who posted at the very top of the article here.

As the author of ten books, most of them for sale now at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com, former editor at Prentince Hall Publishers and Teacher at Ohio University, the University of Hawaii and The New School for Social Research, I feel I know much about literature. I have read much of Rochelle Holt's work and I feel she is a very competent writer. She is an excellent poet and can write fiction and nonfiction. Her work should not be removed. Each reader can decide whether or not her work deserves attention. Maryanne Raphael, Writers World Web site: www.authorsden.com/maryanneraphael 209.244.42.59 05:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

• • Comment. The quality of Holt's work is irrelevant to Wikipedia. The important thing is notability determined with reference to external sources. Also authorsden.com is a well-known site used predominently by self-published or vanity-press-published authors to network in order to promote each other's work. Like Holt, this poster's works seem to be predominently self-published. JulesH 11:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Finally coming to a conclusion on this one, although it took a while. The Pulitzer nomination turns out to be totally unimportant and possibly fabricated. The publications seem to be entirely self published or vanity-press published. Having been an editor for a small press does not confer notability. Regarding the entry in the Internaional Who's Who in Poetry, it should be noted that there are two books of this title. I can't verify her inclusion in either, because both are insanely expensive. One of them is a vanity publication by the International Library of Poetry. Jonathon vos Post's web site, much as I respect it as a useful resource, is not a reliable source and cannot confer notability. The only thing that suggests notability is that a university has a collection of her work, which honestly doesn't seem like enough to me. We have no idea why they decided to collect this work, and there are no secondary sources discussing in what way the work is considered significant. JulesH 11:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
• delete - after reading the discussion here I have to say the article fails the smell test. I would also suggest locking the Columbia Pacific University article until the neutrality and factuality problems there are sorted out. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad 19:44, 15 March 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.