Talk:Denis Dutton

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This article was nominated for deletion on 25 March 2008. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents 1 Why is there a Denis Dutton entry? 2 Legal Woes 3 Librarian 4 NPOV, please

[edit] Why is there a Denis Dutton entry?

What has the fellow done, other than annoy Professor Butler? Has he made a contribution to Philosophy? Does he have a CV? Is this entry and related ones anything other than exercises in self promotion? Should Wikipedia assist? Sokal should, obviously, be in Wikipedia because he did something significant. He wrote nonsense in a particular style and got it published in an 'academic' journal. Dutton criticised other's writing. So what. His own writing is rather tortured. Rather than here, shouldn't his entry be in Facebook? Or is Wikipedia to become the new Facebook? Re: the bookshop, the reason was relevance. His family may also have a dog named Chip. Even if they do, the validity of the information is not a sufficient reason for inclusion even if a DD entry is, itself, justified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.214.15.223 (talk) 15:41, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

• Several points. (1) I'd suggest you sign up for a user name. Editing under an IP address, while entirely accepted, carries with it a negative connotation. You keep eliminating material that is true but unsourced (e.g. the Dutton bookstore). Generally, it is better accepted practice to challenge such material by adding the template ^{[citation needed]} after the sentence or assertion you find troubling. This way you are inviting wider review without making emphatic editorial decisions that not everyone may agree with. All that said, however, I won't bother reverting you again because, upon review, your question is a good one: it is not clear to me at all why Dutton has his own entry. I suggest, therefore, this be merged to Arts & Letters Daily, which is principally what he is known for, while the bad writing contest be added to Butler's page (although I thin kit's there already). Eusebeus (talk) 19:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
• As much as I respect him and found him an inspiring teacher the point here is that at the end of the day he's an academic, and every other academic with a wikipedia page does so because of the influence and respect of their published works. While he does have a whole heap of articles and reviews at www.denisdutton.com I don't think that quite qualifies a page about him. Which leaves www.aldaily.com and the bad writing contest. Therefore I second the above suggestion for this page to be merged. Kansaikiwi (talk) 04:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
• Though Dutton has not made any significant contributions in philosophy (or any other field for that matter), his dabblings in journalism, his spat with Butler, and his founding of A&L Daily qualify him for an entry. One must not be an expert to have an entry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gh878787 (talk • contribs) 01:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Legal Woes

The section on his legal woes uses inflammatory language. This should either be contextualised (what was the outcome?) or else removed forthwith. Eusebeus 11:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The referenced outcome of the case is already included in the entry. Hay4 11:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, there was some kind of out of court settlement. As it is, I still think the language is inappropriate. It is POV pushing, even if the POV is ostensibly coming from a WP:V third party. The paragraphs should detail the substance of the dispute, not the inflammatory language used to characterise the defendants. Eusebeus 15:37, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Librarian

Mr Dutton once mentioned that he is a librarian, I was about to add it to the first line of this page but I'm not 100% sure I should. Any thoughts? Kansaikiwi 06:11, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

He is a librarian. Babajobu 22:50, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV, please

I absolutely agree with Eusebeus, the article has become tainted by POV evaluations (describing a contest that ran for four years as "short-lived"; how does one determine the normative length of a contest of that sort? And how do you determine that being a co-defendant in a single lawsuit five years ago constitute "legal woes" for Dutton). Sources are also used very sloppily. For example, the plaintiff's law firm claims on its website that the case was "brought to a favorable result"; the article not only credits the claims of that side's lawyer as factual, but actually takes them further by saying that "the result was unfavorable to Dutton," when the law firm itself hasn't even claimed that. Even if the plaintiff was content with the outcome, Dutton himself may have been delighted by it, or content with it, or miserable about it. We can't know without reference to further sources.

But all this is really beside the point; I notice that the contributor who added this info had also reproduced in this article claims that Dutton is a "conman", "vicious", and other slurs. Sir, please note that this is a biographical article of a living person, and that potentially defamatory material is subject to high standards of verifiability and notability, as per Jimbo's fiat. And as it stands now, the "Legal Woes" section is based on a single article on a website that doesn't meet Wikipedia's basic requirements for WP:reliable sources. Nor does the existence of one article in a very minor source do much to prove that this information is notable. For those reasons, I'm removing that section until someone can cite better sources or make a better case for notability. Babajobu 04:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

You make good points and I admit that I hadn't put much thought or work into my contributions. That being said, I think that because Dutton decided to promote himself by starting an academic journal, starting and running an academic website, starting a "bad writing contest," and working in radio, he became a public figure. How do you feel about this? Hay4 23:02, 2 January 2007 (UTC)