Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sam Sloan

This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was: Article kept. →Raul654 18:48, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sam Sloan

• Non-notable person... arguing a case before the Supreme Court and making thousands of posts to a Chess newsgroup does not make one notable. I'm not voting as I nominated this for deletion. --Isotope23 01:03, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. This guy is extremely weird, but read the article: totally notable just as a function of all the crazy things he's done. Sdedeo 01:11, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Keep and Cleanup. Sloan has had a colorful/weird life, but so have a lot of people. It seems to me the guy's done one thing maybe warranting inclusion in Wikipedia: arguing and winning a case, pro se, before the Supreme Court. That is indeed quite a feat. If the article were pared down to this one noteworthy fact and a paragraph or two of biographical information, I think it would be appropriate. But all this stuff about Sloan's perfect SAT score, his sex life, his custody battles, other litigation, prison sentence, Usenet, blog, etc. is way too much IMO. Krakatoa 01:28, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I originally had the above down as "Weak Delete," but that wasn't quite right. Seeing Andrew Lenahan's vote below for "Weak Keep and Cleanup," I have changed my vote to that, which is a more accurate expression of my views. Krakatoa 15:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Looks to meet the bar as an author, amongst other things. Paring it down sounds sensible. Flowerparty 01:31, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. A non-lawyer who successfully argued a case before the US Supreme Court and is a published author to boot? Smells like notability to me. Fernando Rizo T/C 01:37, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Delete: It's marginal, but the question that it fails, to me, is whether this is a proper biography rather than incident. Is this person, as a person, notable? Is a biography necessary/useful? It's close, but I'd say not. Instead, it seems to me that he is curious and that the article itself is actually about the eccentricities rather than the man. Geogre 02:05, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak extreme keep. Tastes like chicken to me. —RaD Man (talk) 02:06, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• keep. Notable enough for me. Isotope23: why nominate something if you don't feel strongly enough to vote to delete it? — brighterorange (talk) 02:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I generally don't vote on things I nom for deletion, unless it is obviously an advert or cruft. my opinion is Strong Delete, but as the one who nom'd it, my vote is biased. --Isotope23 13:07, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Strong keep. Concur with Fernado Rizo. Andrew pmk | Talk 02:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

• Somewhere down the line, some day, someone will ask the question that nominations such as this beg: does it actually do any harm to an encyclopaedia of the size and scope of Wikipedia to include well-written articles on people of marginal interest or is that actually what makes this project worthwhile? If the idea was simply to create a rather inaccurate and poorly written version of Britannica, would half of us be here? Is it simply a vanity project for geeks and nerds who don't get out enough? I can't believe that. I believe we're here to create something grand, not just a collection of "useful" biographies or articles about what we personally feel is "notable" or "important". It's rather saddening that that view is not widely enough held that nominations such as this aren't just laughed out of the place. Grace Note 03:42, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
  • It's sad to me that there are still people trying to dissuade VfD nominees, that there are still people whose standard is merely that it is in coherent English. A beautiful essay on your MUD avatar is not encyclopedic. If you believe that we are here to please ourselves, then your vision of what a reference work is is fringe. I think we're here to be of use to researchers, to serve. The hypothetical someday when the hypothetical someone comes along who doesn't seek this person in the context of his SC argument but solely by this particular variant of his name is not sufficient to vote "keep." Euphony is a false god, and Wikipedia is not Everything2: it is not a project for self-expression. Geogre 10:40, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Normally I would agree with you, but you didn't answer the question at all: What harm is there in having a well-written article on a subject of a borderline interest level? --Ryan Delaney ^talk 19:43, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
    • My answer about harm is that, of course, harm isn't really the criterion. However, if pressed I can demonstrate it. The article establishes that this person is known by 2-3 names. His major activities are 1) a court case, 2) pounding at a keyboard. So, how is this information going to be retrieved? Where is it going to do some good? Secondly, how much of a context is he generating for himself? The court case is a court case and should be discussed in that place alone; how it was won by an untrained guy is marginal, and this biography doesn't give us any reason to believe that his victory is a sign of anything or part of his character or an attribute of his life -- he just did it (and none of the issues are mentioned). As for slapping a keyboard, that's what I refer to as fiction about fiction: it is an ephemeral event in an epiphenomenon of a series of conversations that have taken place. We don't feel like writing the biography of the chatterbox who goes to every departmental meeting and won't shut up: we want the biography of the guy who goes to the departmental meetings and sets policy or changes the elections. What I see here is a biography of a life that isn't given any reason and a memorializing of someone whose accomplishment is prolixity. The harm is that a common name space is primarily occupied by a largely irrelevant person. Geogre 03:07, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Just because it does no harm does not mean it is necessary to include the information in Wikipedia. Sloan is an interesting character, but does he truly merit an article, particularly an article that contains so much pointless trivia about his life? There is a difference between "interesting" and "notable". How does an bio of Sam Sloan contribute to "creating something grand"? By your criteria Grace, we might as well start including people like Abdner Ashman because I'm sure someone, somewhere, feels that the World record holder for Ms. Pac-Man is a notable person...
  • I empathize with Grace Note's comments, but wonder if this opens the door for self-promotional biographies. Is the test for notability how colorful and fascinating of a biography that you can write about yourself? --goethean ॐ 21:19, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

It's a pretty safe this article is going to be kept based on the votes here. I still stand by my VfD because an article of this nature has no merit unless there is an obvious desire by the majority Wikipedians to catalogue this information. The VfD establishes that one way or another. If the consensus is Keep then so be it, though it could certainly stand a cleanup. --Isotope23 16:26, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

• Weak Keep and Cleanup This is an odd article indeed: a bio of a notable (or at least borderline) person that's just overflowing with trivia, with a death of actual encyclopedic info. Anyone who's written that many books probably deserves an article, but the trivia (usenet posting habits, etc) needs to go. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 03:55, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. By itself, Sam Sloan's chess playing does not make him notable, except that he is the strongest player I know of who likes to defend the Black side of the Damiano Defence, but being a non-lawyer to win a case at the Supreme Court, is unusual, and does make Sloan notable. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete It looks like it's not going to make any difference to the outcome but I say delete. So he's a little odd/clever whatever.. big deal!! None of that makes for any reason to keep this article. There. Had my two-penny worth. I can go home happy now.... Marcus22 10:27, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep And strongly agree with Grace Note's comments above. I'm currently researching a group of people considered marginal (like this guy) in the mid-60's, and you wouldn't believe how difficult information like this is to find. it's precisely articles like this that Wikipedia will be used for in the future, not the so-called "main" entries. Vizjim 11:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Dotty, colourful, no doubt the most entertaining taxi driver in New York if you like that kind of thing, but ultimately nn. Peeper 14:56, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Winning a Supreme Court case pro se seems notable, and some of the other stuff in his life sounds interesting; he's also pretty (in)famous in chess circles. *Dan* 15:43, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as per Fernado Rizo and others. Hall Monitor 18:39, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Delete. Since this article will be kept, hwoever, I'll echo [User:Starblind|Andrew Lenahan]]'s sentiment that it needs to be cleaned up, and probably shortened, given the subject matter. I strongly disagree with Grace Note's comments; this mindset is why we are moving toward keeping articles on every preschool, Trek BBS, and the lighting guy on Friends. Dottore So 19:35, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Obviously --Ryan Delaney ^talk 19:41, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Let us not go through this again, folks... Nagaflas 02:39, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep Well known net.personality, might be a KOTM recipient (forgot). Article could stand being edited mercilessly. Phr 20:05, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Well written, asserts and proves notability. Owen× ☎ 23:39, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
• Comment Why is this up for VFD again? This is the second time within a month [1]. It appears that the last decision was to keep [2]. --PhilipO 00:22, September 9, 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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.