Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Sollog (4th 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 delete. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Sollog

Sollog (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Not encyclopedic, subject is not widely noted as significant.

Delete Here we come again to John Ennis, who created this article himself in December 2004 from an IP address, apparently as a marketing platform for his obscure websites. As a self-described numerologist, mystic, psychic, self-published author, artist, musician, poet and filmmaker he made some very fuzzy, not very notable predictions on the USENET a long time ago. Today, a page like this would be speedy deleted within hours, maybe minutes, then likely salted. However back then, CSD was more limited, Mr Ennis edited very agressively, Wikipedia editors became curious as to who this was and after a long edit war which some still recall as The Sollog Wars the article settled uneasily into its present form. What is notable about this topic? A few articles in a local Philadelphia free weekly newspaper? Some highly unreliable attributions to a handful of USENET posts? A passing line or two in the NYT and the Guardian in the frenzied, rumour driven aftermath of 911? I don't think this topic meets our notability standards. Ennis is not widely noted, nor has he done anything widely noted as significant. Instead, what we have here is a hit piece on a living person who only tried to use Wikipedia as a spam delivery node. This article never would have been started if he hadn't started it himself and the overall sweep of the narrative about this non-notable person is wholly negative. We have big conflict of interest and biography of living persons worries wrapped up in a biographical article about someone most folks have never heard of and wouldn't care to. Gwen Gale (talk) 18:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Delete - oh, goodie, Sollog is back on AfD. The article is still thinly sourced, and the sources still do not show that this guy is notable in any way. I had hoped this would have been resolved previously, and I can only hope that this time, we say "So long, Sollog". Arkyan 18:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete and salt please, as when he gets out, if not before, he'll recreate it. Earlier today I was about to delete anything sourced from Usenet (I remember the days, and you never knew who was who in the Sollog threads, definitely an unreliable source) or the Philadelphia City Paper, which would have left virtually zilch, as Gwen says, just a line or two in the aftermath of 911 put in for color. Definitely does not meet notability standards today. I also agree about conflict of interest problems which I predict (ok, shoot me) will get worse, with sockpuppets galore in the not too distant future, if it isn't happening right now.--Doug Weller (talk) 19:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Reluctant Delete I have to say that I like articles about internet oddities like Sollog, James Harris, Archimedes Plutonium and so on. It's one of the charms of Wikipedia, but I suppose I must admit that it isn't particularly encyclopedic. In this case in particular, we have few sources regarding Sollog (especially since Usenet posts are not regarded as reliable) and a real question of notability. So, much as I hate to say it, this page should probably be deleted. Phiwum (talk) 21:07, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions. -- Fabrictramp | talk to me 22:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Merge the small sourceable capsule to Notable Usenet personalities. --Dhartung | Talk 23:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete and protect, non-notable kook. WillOakland (talk) 22:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. There is no COI issue because Sollog's initial attempts at self-promotion were overwhelmed by numerous unconflicted editors who made the article NPOV. Notability stems from Sollog's extensive online presence as a prominent Usenet kook. As per this Slashdot story: "John Patrick Ennis, whose nutty predictions as Sollog (Son of Light, Light of God) are familiar to many usenetters...." (Usenet, for the benefit of you young people, used to be HUGE.) Such things aren't within the traditional beat of the mainstream media, but Sollog has been covered by the Washington Post ([1]), by the Guardian (two paragraphs in this article about internet predictions), and in the several Philadelphia City Paper stories cited in our article. Finally, it should mean something that so many Wikipedia editors spent literally hundreds of hours to make sure that websurfers could find a thorough and NPOV article about Sollog. The article has more than 2,000 edits and the talk page has been archived eight times. JamesMLane t c 03:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I brought up COI because if Ennis had not started the article himself, I think it unlikely anyone else would have done. Gwen Gale (talk) 04:16, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Also please see the comments below about what could be Altman's COI as a published source. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep per James M Lane. Gamaliel (talk) 04:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per nom --DHeyward (talk) 04:47, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Somebody who briefly managed to gain internet notoriety (and no, I don't mean fame) for being a "psychic" and blowhard, who's the "author and artist, musician, poet, and filmmaker" of stuff that he has to publish himself and that no sober adult seems to admit to having consumed, and who's involved in legal troubles that (pace Anthony DeFino) seem boringly humdrum, seems only notable trivially, as an annoyance. Which would conflict with some clause of BLP. If he'd persuaded a bunch of "followers" to do away with themselves as a sneaker commercial, I suppose he'd merit an article; but as it is, sorry no. And before this is interpreted as WP:IDONTLIKEIT, I'll add that (i) I like instigators of mass suicides (or suicide-murders) a lot less than I like poor old Ennis, and that (ii) as pointed out above there has been virtually no morbid (let alone respectful) interest shown in Ennis. -- Hoary (talk) 02:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Wow, we are finally going to get rid of Sollog--all right, let's do it. I first became aware of Sollog in 2004 when he showed up on a now defunct message board, typing in ALL CAPS and claiming that he was a psychic and a supernatural being, that he had predicted 9/11, and, somehow even more incredibly, that he was a published author. These claims were all immediately debunked by the forum members--i.e., the 9/11 "prediction" is so generic that it could apply to anything, and Sollog had made similarly vague predictions about many, many, many dates on the calendar, and so his targeting 9/11 was nothing more than a coincidence--and note, this is his greatest claim to "fame"! And of course it was even easier to debunk his claim to be a published author, since his writings are all self-published. What was evident back in 2004, and what continues to be evident four years later, is that he is none of the things he claims, but merely a tireless self-promoter on the Internet. Well, big deal, anybody with a modem and an obsession can drive up his own Google hits, so this is no real accomplishment either. There is, however, some potential notability in Sollog's brushes with the law, but I think these are quite trivial, as he is not a celebrity and the people he's affected are not notable either, and the issues involved are relatively minor. Thus, Sollog fails the implied guidelines and the spirit of WP:CRIMINAL. His article here has been little more than a spillover of his vast Internet self-promotions, and as such, the article does not reflect any true notability of the subject himself. So I think we are long overdue in deleting it. While doing so will not discourage Sollog himself, it might discourage others who wish to fabricate a false online persona and then try to base WP articles on the Ghits. Qworty (talk) 21:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
• Unsure: I was around when the article was started; you can see my comments on the first VfD that occurred. This article is a good example of a reasonable article (ignore notability for a moment) that started as an illiterate fanboy page. Even under the onslaught of many edits by multifarious IP addresses (and threats of lawsuits, and phone calls to Wiki founders), it was maintained in that form for a long time, with lots of factual information added from a variety of sources (the Philly paper, state arrest records, and Sollog's own websites and Usenet postings for examples of his claims); even a couple of images were added. I guess what I'm saying is if article is deleted, save history as an example. A2Kafir (talk) 15:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
• Delete per Gwen Gale and Arkyan. MrPrada (talk) 16:47, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
• Delete and Salt - not notable, a couple of paragraphs in a couple of reliable sources don't make somebody notable (at most they seem to say that he is a kook). The Philadelphia City Paper articles should not be cited (leaving almost no sources) since they are not written by an un-involved 3rd party. The author writes, SOLLOG "was, after all, the guy I reported to the FBI for making bomb threats against me." Smallbones (talk) 13:59, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

This hasn't been brought up before but it's true, Altman and Ennis had a drawn out locally public feud which did rise to what Altman described as a bomb threat. This arguably makes Altman's PCP stories COI, which means they could be slanted (whether they are or not) and the article doesn't cite independent sources covering what Altman's stories covered, or the interaction between Altman and Ennis. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:28, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I almost agree, but it seems to easy a way to nullify a critic. Would this apply to articles written before Ennis's alleged bomb threat? Doug Weller (talk) 14:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I can say Altman's articles were highly critical from the outset. Now, I didn't mean to say all this nullifies Altman's stories, but only draws a shadow of COI worries over them if we have no other independent sources to verify what Altman wrote. Gwen Gale (talk) 14:58, 3 June 2008 (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.