Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Timothy W. Lynch

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 no consensus. Shanel 05:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timothy W. Lynch

Person is utterly nonnotable. Has a job, for which he apparently has done nothing noteworthy. Wrote some amateur reviews for a TV show. After the notability tag was on article for a while and a discussion about it was attempted on the talk page, still nothing. Someone who wrote most of this article created the vanity article Kurt Beyer Films, which was a recreation of the Kurt beyer films article that was deleted as vanity a while back, I believe the newer one was speedied. This just looks like vanity, and the major contributor says he's a friend of the guy... Perhaps if it's up for deletion somebody can try to come up with real justification for keeping it instead of removing the notability tag as "vandalism". If not, then it should be deleted. DreamGuy 13:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per above. DreamGuy 15:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete vanity. Ruby 14:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete as per nom and above James084 14:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete While obvious vanity, the content is so embarassing that I can't figure out what the fellow was thinking when he wrote it. Anyway, AfD will do him a favour and send it to the trash before he Galloways himself further. Eusebeus 14:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Revert and Keep - After undoing the NPOV edits by Nightscream, we get to a decent, unvanity, stub page. [1]. Mr. Lynch is one of the earliest online Sci Fi critics, starting in 1988. He wrote more than 400 reviews about Star Trek series, B5, and others. Although he's not written any books, ran for public office, or died in an interesting way (all usually the mark of Wikipedia notability), I think he still falls on the Keep side of the line. JRP 15:09, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment So how is an "online Sci Fi critic" notable for an encyclopedia? You need to find an actual reason the person is notable, per WP:BIO standards. Until you can do that there's no reason to keep this. DreamGuy 15:18, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment I made a reversion, per indicated. I agree that he does not meet the tests of WP:BIO, unless you stretch some of them. However, I stand by my decision as Mr. Lynch has been extremely influential in the Star Trek universe, through both fans and producers/writers that have read his work. Unfortunately, I concede that there are relatively few concrete references currently to support this point. I'm still leaning toward a soft keep, despite the guideline. JRP 15:38, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

• Delete per nom, vanity. --Terence Ong 15:17, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. Vanity. *drew 17:15, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, per nom. -Rebelguys2 19:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Certainly the most famous reviewer of Trek episodes. trektoday.com on his last review 14,000 hits for "tim lynch" "star trek" on Google. I'm still looking for references to his relevance to the producers, although the First Contact anecdote is generally accepted as true. Powers 19:48, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Note: Editor has only been registered since January 6, 2006 - when potential sockpuppeting going on some admins treat votes by new admins differently, which is up to the closing admin. DreamGuy 14:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Query. Just what constitutes "new" around here? Powers 14:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep, in agreement with JRP and Powers above. - robert.butler 19:53, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Note: User's only edit on Wikipedia, created after article listed for deletion, clearly does not count. DreamGuy 14:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment. I think the closing admin can determine that for him/herself. I don't think it's appropriate to strike out another user's comments. Powers 14:24, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep in agreement with JRP's comments. Wrong to dismiss this article as vandalism and vanity since it was not written by or for the subject. Also, it is unfair to judge this article based on what happened with other articles (How does Kurt Beyer Films even play into this??) Editor who nominated for deletion appears to be biased based on his comportment on the discussion page, and on this page by not taking into account the new arguments presented on the discussion page and solely judging the article on a single case of vandalism (Perhaps if it's up for deletion somebody can try to come up with real justification for keeping it instead of removing the notability tag as "vandalism". If not, then it should be deleted.) Flypanam 02:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment - Kurt Beyer Films plays into it because that was a vanity piece created in bad faith to put an article back in after it was already deleted as nonnotable vanity, and the person contributed to this article and seemed to be doing the same thing here. "Not taking into account new arguments presented on the discussion page" is false, I read your comments and found them wholly lacking. "solely judging the article on a single case of vandalism" is also extremely inaccurate, as that's not the sole thing I was judging on, which is readily apparent from my comments. Please try to keep discussion on the article itself instead of personally attacking me in an attempt to try to sway votes. DreamGuy 14:13, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I did not personally attack you; in your original nomination for deletion you did indeed claim that there were no real arguments for keeping it made, and inferred that one act of vandalism on this article means that the whole article is vandalism. There were quite a few arguments made; even if you believe they were wholly lacking, others might not. We are all civil people here, and by no means did I mean to offend you in any way or accuse you of anything. However, in your accusations of "new" users who have been registered for nearly a month, with no connection to this page, and created before this page was even brought into question, and arguing with other editor's decisions, as well as in instances on the discussion page, it appears as though you are taking personal offense to the existence of this article, for one reason or another. Flypanam 22:48, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Keep as per the arguments presented by Flypanam and JRP, both here and on the article's Talk page. The article still has some NPOV issues which a good cleanup could address, and several good edits have been made toward this end in the past. We should keep up the good work in that respect, but not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Draeco 03:34, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment / Article Update - Article has been updated with three points (in order of importance) which I believe may satisfy WP:BIO. First, that Mr. Lynch was a regular reviewer/colunmist for TV Zone magazine, for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Second, that he was a writer for the trivia video game Star Trek: The Video Game. (It's a Star Trek-themed You Don't Know Jack-style game.) And finally, that he wrote the forward to the nonfiction book Net Trek. The third is of debatable merit, but the combination of the first two seems to satisfy the guideline. JRP 14:19, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Something in here might be notable, but we need details, and it needs to be verified. I'm not happy that his claims to have written for the magazine and book have been put into the article solely on the claims of the individual himself, largely because we've had problems in the past with people lying about sources during deletion votes and getting people to vote keep, only to find out the information was wrong later. I am not accusing him of this, but simply saying this has been a real problem here in the past. More importantly, these things still aren't quite the notability level necessary in my mind... Forward of a book is pretty short, and isn't really an author... he's listed as an "additional writer" of trivia along with a list of other people, and we don't normally have articles for trivia writers... a reviewer for a magazine typically also isn't at the same level as an article author. The TV Zone thing may be notable if he was a featured reviewer... i.e. someone whose name ran at the top of a review column on a regular basis, not anonymously and not as one of a rotating staff of reviewers. It depends upon how high profile it was. Even there, it's still not really quite up to the necessary level in my mind, though.

Anyone voting based upon the TV Zone claims would probably be best served waiting for the evidence of the exact nature of the reviews in TV Zone to be gathered and verified... of course that is really can only be a suggestion, and people showing up to vote can vote based upon what they see now.DreamGuy 14:59, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment With respect to your comment about the forward (which, I admit, I haven't confirmed yet-- Amazon wants $103 for a copy used!), I disagree with you completely. Being asked to write a forward to a book is an indication of notability, not the reverse. Although it is, as you put it, "short", the point isn't the writing of it but rather that the publisher and the author felt that this person was notable enough that having him contribute some small part to the book would be an advantage. (Increase sales, credibility, etc.) So, I stand by (once verified) that being an important indicator of notability, per our standards. JRP 01:33, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

• Weak keep per Draeco. Stifle 14:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete for lack of verifiability and significance. A few details about him may be verifiable, but not nearly enough to make an article on this guy. Internet postings? Please. Wikipedia is not for promoting people. Friday (talk) 15:00, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep per very persuasive arguments from Flypanam and JRP. Bias against important contributors to new media needs to end. -- JJay 15:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, and enhance As per JJay, et al. While it is problematic that the article remains spartan, this is by no means a reason to delete it and – in fact – a reason to enhance it. Mr. Lynch is a known quantity in terms of online Star Trek reviews: there are at least 12 000 online references to him and his ST reviews. I can think of plenty of other entries that should be "unpersoned": this isn't one of them. (PS: For those wishing to scrutinise Wikipedian criteria, I have some 14 000 edits in Wp and have been around for around a year. :)) E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 17:32, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Comment Actually, if you look at those results in Google, it's only 135 and then many duplicates of those 135, probably from old Usenet posts being mirrored across the web. And it doesn't say "at least 12,000" but "about" which in Googlespeak is just a wild guess on all the duplicates. On top of that, known quantity in fandom alone does not meet notability guidelines for an encyclopedia. DreamGuy 17:54, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Whether "at least" or "about" 12,000, that's still incredibly impressive. Lynch personifies the Star Trek review genre. -- JJay 18:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I say "about" because, if one searches using even looser criteria, one obtains a number more than four times as great, which is just as subjective as noting fewer, unique instances from the above. And I'll leave it to Wp policies and contributors here to determine what constitutes notability (which is neither a policy nor guideline in Wp), but arguably does fulfill the biography guideline. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 18:09, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Passes Google test. Englishrose 19:53, 26 January 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Per request of DreamGuy, I have found citations / references online for his work on Net Trek. (I also found a reference to his gameshow appearances, though I mention that only for completeness; I don't think that affects his notability in any way.) There are also a number of references to his work on TV Zone online. [2] These have been added to the article. JRP 03:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep First of all, I think it is worth noting that DreamGuy has clearly got an agenda with regards to eliminating vanity pages, that is to say, anything which he doesn't deem notable. Anyone who has heard of Lynch's work will vouch for his notability within the community he writes for. Also, as JRP pointed out via his citations, Lynch's work with TV Zone further expands his audience and justifies this article's existance. Sure he may not be notable to everyone, but those he has written for hold him in high regard and respect what he has done. I firmly believe that deleting this article would be a blow to media reviewers everywhere and would undermine the credibility of Wikipedia by virtue of restricting information to those who desire it. --YoyaDiata 21:43, 27 January 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.