Talk:John Henry Browne

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[edit] Please remove speedy deletion tag

This article did not meet the Wikipedia:Criteria_for_speedy_deletion at the time it was tagged, and certainly does not now.

Wikipedia policy only allows speedy deletion on grounds of notability if the article "does not assert the importance of the subject." It is simply not true that the article makes no claims that Mr. Brown is important. It has from the beginning claimed that Mr. Browne is a "prominent" attorney, that he works on "high profile" cases, and that he gained "notoriety" due to recent events (a term I subsequently changed to "nationwide attention" to avoid being pejorative).

If an article does claim its subject's notability but there is a good faith dispute, the proper course is a there is a valid good faith dispute as to a subject's notability, the proper course is the Wikipedia:Articles for deletion process.

[edit] Argument for notability

Just in case, and to avoid any unnecessary dispute resolution time, here is why I believe the subject is notable.

  • Mr. Browne is a well-known lawyer to begin with. Browne's work on criminal defense, and particular earprint forensics, is notable itself and already deserving of a Wikipedia article. Earprints are older than fingerprints and there is an active debate about whether these and other body prints should be allowed as evidence in criminal law trials. This was widely reported. Recently Browne came to national attention for suing a user review and ratings site that ranks lawyers. This is a very active field that generates a lot of attention, both within the legal community (with respect to the legal profession and standards for advertising and publicizing lawyers) and the tech and media community (with respect to free speech, and the field of Web 2.0 companies that provide user review and feedback for products, services, etc). Some of the articles mention that if Browne were to prevail in his suit it could be the end of user review websites, not just for lawyers but for everything. Though not dispositive on the issue, a google search can often be a good reality check over whether someone is widely known or not. There are more than 12,000 pages for Mr. Browne, which is unusually high even among famous lawyers -- Melvin Belli, one of the most famous of all time, has 27,000 hits; Johnnie Cochran, perhaps the most famous, has 240,000.
  • The actual notability guidelines require "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." There are three articles cited from Seattle, Washington's main newspaper and main business paper that are specifically about Browne and/or his case against avvo, as well as a chapter in a reference work about earprints, a major portion of which is devoted to Mr. Browne's work on the subject. Nobody can say that these papers are not reliable or independent "secondary sources" as these terms are used on Wikipedia. As for significance of coverage, the guideline says that the term means that the articles address the subject directly and in detail, which they do. If anyone thinks these articles are not sufficient there are hundreds and hundreds of others about the man on the web; the article contains a link to the "news" page of his website that liss a dozen and a half of them.
  • With respect to notability of people specifically, an article is legitimate if the person meets any of the following criteria: ** subject of published secondary sources that are reliable, intellectually independent, and independent of the subject -- multiple independent sources Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and CourtTV, so yes.; ** widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in their specific field: earprint evidence may not be used in criminal trials so, yes. Wikidemo 04:28, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
Wow, you don't mess around. The references in the article alone are enough to convince me that we can write an adequate article on the fellow, so I have removed the speedy deletion request. Although I'd expect otherwise, if the original tagger still feels this article doesn't meet our standards, community discusstion at WP:AFD would be the next step. William Pietri 04:32, 18 June 2007 (UTC)