Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Troy Blackford

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It's so pathetic that the article this refers to was taken down, yet this stupid deletion page will live on forever. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.207.141.55 (talk) 18:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Initial Dispute

So wikipedia is paper? 448,000+ visitors are non-n? WP:NOT 700+ fans of this 'non-n' book in less than a month... link --Ira-welkin 03:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Why don't you calm down and tell us what you're talking about? What site is getting 448,000 visitors? How do you define "700+ fans" of a book, 700 myspace friends? Fan-1967 03:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Sorry. Don't have much time right now. But if you look up Troy's band, the Atom Spies, on google, you will find that they get more hits than the articles about the 'Atom Spies,' the people who supposedly were trying to steal info about the H-Bomb. Those Atom Spies have a fairly long wikipedia article. So if you are going by how well known he is, using google as a measuring tool, then his one-person musical group, which has released 3 CD's, not just the ones mentioned in the article, seems to deserve to be included. Since it is covered in his article and prevents ambiguity with the historical atom spies, it seems fair. --Ira-welkin 04:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe you can give specific information about these CD's: titles, labels, dates? My impression is that most of the google hits are primarily about actual spies. There may be CD information for this group out there; I didn't find it easily. I don't find them or him on allmusic. Fan-1967 04:57, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Please address the Atom Spies issue, with the google ranking, etc. If more people visit Troy's page than read about the historical Atom Spies, which are featured here, then you have to address that. --Ira-welkin 14:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
  • When I look at the first 50 Google hits for "Atom Spies", my quick count finds about 15 that refer to this group, primarily from their own sites and myspace, with the other 35 referring to actual spies, primarily the Rosenbergs. So what google ranking are you talking about? Fan-1967 15:19, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Google shows results in the order of most linked to and most visited. I don't believe that the bullet headings are appropriate now considering we are discussing and not casting votes. ;) But I am sorry I sounded so harried and rushed before, I always get worked up! ;) Sorry. But I think you will find that the 700+ people mentioned before are not Troy's myspace friends, which he has more than 9000 of, but of people who have joined a group specifically relating to his upcoming book, and interested in pre-orders. I think you should give the guy a chance! This article has been up for two or three months, and nobody has wanted to delete it, and now that people are looking for his books in stores and book stores are ready to order copies of it in less than a month you want to take it down! I think it wouldn't hurt to leave it up for two more months and -then- re-evaluate its usefulness. --Ira-welkin 16:49, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
I think you can see my points with regards to the site being listed first. It is listed first because it is the most linked to and visited of all of them. So it must be that the band is attracting more visits than the Spies. Conversely, look how high up the wikipedia article is when you search his name: that is representative of how popular that page is than the other pages featuring the words "Troy Blackford". Make sense yet?
As the historical Atom Spies happened in the 40's, the fact that there is more about them is not relevant. --Ira-welkin 18:20, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
First of all, inviting all your friends to come and express votes that ignore the Wikipedia standards is not usually productive in these discussions. Totally aside from that, there are a number of issues here: How long the article stayed before someone noticed it and nominated it for deletion is irrelevant: there are over a million articles. Still no word about those 3 CD's; what happened to them? Also, generally with regard to authors we look for sales of at least 5,000 at a bare minimum. You have 700 who say they will buy it when it gets published (by whom? Is there a publisher?). All I see at this point is that, based on a rather imprecise google ranking, there are some unspecified large number of people visiting his website and myspace page. (His site may be visited by more people than any of the individual sites about the real spies, but the ranking certainly won't tell you if he's visited by more than all of them put together.) Am I missing something? Fan-1967 18:31, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes you are. If Wikipedia is Not Paper than there is always room for expansion of the critera for inclusion, especially considering the completly 21st Century way that Blackford is known. You have to admit, '1967' that you don't know much about the emergent ways of distribution or the 'new ways' the industry is headed in this P2P universe. Why squash something you don't understand? I can contact Blackford and get some site stats that will 'specify' your numbers if you want. I see that all you do is go around deleting pages of people you don't feel are famous, and I think you are lumping this person in with others of a different nature. --Ira-welkin 18:36, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Secondly I didn't invite anybody, I did send a message to him about it. I don't think that expressing, essentially, that WIKIPEDIA IS NOT PAPER in other terms is a failure of those people to express valid points. Nobody merely 'voted,' but explained their position. --Ira-welkin 18:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
There is a counterbalance to "Wikipedia is not paper". it is "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information." Wikipedia standards for inclusion are constantly evolving, and constantly changing, but at this time, they are what they are. You don't like them, that's fine. There's a whole giant web out there to post in. Fan-1967 18:44, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, a whole giant web where anyone who seeks VERIFIED, FACTUAL information has NO WHERE ELSE TO TURN TO. You are cruel. --Ira-welkin 19:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
What have we actually verified here? That he has a website, and some number of people visit it. That is the grand, sum total of all verified information that has been provided. Fan-1967 19:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me there is an equally fine line between what is potentially useful and what is not and that this article does have value to people in terms of information. Nowhere on the internet is this information collected and presented, espcially not in a verified factual form. Therefore, it is not 'indescriminate'. --Ira-welkin 19:11, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
His date, place, and terms of his birth all all matters of public record. His adoption, his earlier output (computer programs) as well as his MUSICAL, LITERARY, AND VISUALLY ARTISTIC releases are all verifiable. The number and nature of these materials, the means that he uses to create them, the method of which he learned these things. What made you chose 'the website, and the people who visit it?' That you wanted a point. --Ira-welkin 19:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Are we talking about the same article, here? Nobody cares that much about his birth date. What releases are we talking about that are verified? There's mention of a "Zero Tolerants" CD, but no release date or label. Two "Atom Spies" compilation CD's: no release dates or label. Another CD released in June: no label? There's mention of a book, but no publisher. Where are these documented or verified? Fan-1967 19:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

(let's move this back)

I also think it is fair to list the myspace group as his 'fans' because the first third of the book is available on one of his websites and more than 10,000 people have read them and enjoyed them. And that's from the book he hasn't put out yet! MANY thousands more have read and commented on his eariler writings. Just because he is not charging for these stories makes it less impressive than 7,000 readers? Get with the times! New medium doesn't mean less important. You know in your heart that if the people making the guidelines were thinking about this, they would take more time to think about what they were saying than YOU are, blindly evoking these guidelines in the hopes that they will enable you to do something you want to do. --Ira-welkin 19:16, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
And these figures can, of course, all be verified by the owner of the website, who just happens to be Troy Blackford. Another Wikipedia rule you probably don't like: Verfiability by third-party Reliable Sources. Fan-1967 19:26, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


Intimidation attempt unsuccessful. Unreliable sources like Yahoo public records. And as to the releases, have you even tried researching this? They are all published by cafepress, a real publisher with an article all their own. If you would have visited the site you are talking about, and done some research, you would know. But you don't want to know, you want to act, its some kind of tension release for you. --Ira-welkin 19:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
If you'd like, I can put all of the release date, label number, and other information for these works IN the article, with a link to their verifiable, third party (cafepress) source. I will actually do this now. --Ira-welkin 19:35, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
As all the information about publisher, release dates, etc is available on the www.cafepress.com website linked to FROM Blackford's site, I'm afraid for you that the answer has been found. A reputable third party, cafepress.com has verified all these allegedly 'missing' things from the beginning. An obvious, verifiable FACT that you obviously never bothered to investigate. You are bent on a mission of article deletion. Go somewhere that deserves it.

If this 'third party' stuff is, as you have been saying, the main problem with the article making it deserve deletion, then you have just answered your question. Plus, as I have mentioned countless times, amazon WILL list all of these works by the end of the month. --Ira-welkin 19:41, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

CafePress, a POD publisher? I think you'll find they don't carry any more weight than traditional vanity presses. Fan-1967 19:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
If the issue is verifiability and not 'weight' then they do. That was what you were saying. --Ira-welkin 19:56, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that POD publishers will list a book or CD that only sells a few copies a year, since it costs them nothing to do so. So yes, the CD's exist, but no way to know if anyone's buying them, or how many. Real publishers who show up on Amazon or other such sites have sales rankings. Fan-1967 20:03, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Well in three weeks when all of these items are on amazon you can find out. I'm sure you'll think it's interesting. Until then you have no compelling reason to remove this article. As you have revealed through your own querrying the issue is far more complicated than you originally thought. --Ira-welkin 20:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, until then, when we can see if he can generate a sales rank with less than seven digits, we have no compelling reason to keep. We will see whether these myspace friends and website visitors translate into paying customers. Fan-1967 20:32, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
So only the commercial aspects of this person are noteworthy? This is childish. --Ira-welkin 20:40, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Only the commercial aspects are verifiable. Anyone can get a bunch of hits on a webpage. Actually there are other factors: reviews from well-known publications, for example. I haven't seen any indication of those. Fan-1967 20:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Considered as a traditional mainstream author, musician, or artist Troy may not live up to the standards of wikipedia for inclusion. But as a purely online presence Troy more than exceeds the requirements. Take him out of the catagory of musican, author, and artist and you will have someone still worthy of note. --Ira-welkin 02:29, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
'All your base are belong to us' has its own page, despite not being an artist, musican, politican, or anything but a curiousity. Of course I agree that it is interesting and deserves to stay as an interest... why don't you agree about this? --Ira-welkin 02:31, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Personally, I'm not a big supporter of articles like that, but: Google search for "All your base are belong to us" returns 900,000 hits. On the other hand, Google search for "Troy Blackford" returns 450. People talk about that stupid phrase; it's all over the web. He isn't; the vast majority of those hits trace back to his own site, atomspies.com. Again, it comes down to third parties. There don't seem to be many people, other than him, talking about him. Fan-1967 02:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ABOUT THE ARTICLE

I only made this article because it was on the REQUESTED ARTICLES page. SORRY! --Ira-welkin 18:42, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Pretty much anyone can request anything. Fan-1967 18:44, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Then spend your time trying to fix that system. ;) You go around curing each and every 'symptom' of what you percieve to be a problem, without fixing the overriding cause. Could it be that you enjoy erasing people's articles? ;) --Ira-welkin 19:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)