Talk:Lou Schuler

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 19 May 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

Contents

[edit] Okay

So I edited the article to throw away the bath water (all the unnecessary and unsourced claims) and keep the baby. Now the baby is looking pretty unhealthy. Most of the remaining claims can only be suitably justified by a blog, and that too of the subject himself, who is pretty heavy on self-promotion. The only modestly reliable source that can be cited is about an award given to one of his artcile in a men's health magazine. Not enough notability, I'd say. Someone, please, do add information to establish the subject's notability (not information about his wife and children, available from amazon.com). May be the books he wrote make him notable, if the books are cited by any source other than a book vendor (i.e. amazon.com) and/or a promotional source. Cheers. Aditya Kabir 19:56, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Very nice clean up. The original article read like an advertisement -- in fact, a month ago, I deleted links to his books on Amazon. I can't really find much in regards to notability except to say that I am familiar with him from various health related fitness forums that I frequent, as his one book is referenced often among posters, and I believe he has sold enough copies of his most recent book to qualify for WP:N for the author requirement. So I personally think that an article should remain, but I'm not certain if much more should be added outside of what's already in the article. --Ataricodfish 19:01, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Ataricodfish and say I'm in favor of keeping the article. Lou is well known in both the fitness journalism industry, as well as the fitness industry in general. The books he's written, edited or co-written is at least as extensive than a host of other authors who aren't bestsellers either, but who haven't been tagged for deletion. As for the awards he won for magazine writing, a National Magazine Award is a pretty big deal. To dismiss it so casually is to diminish the work of writers for publications such as The Atlantic, The Economist, Wired, Rolling Stone, and Time. Getting a nomination for this award is a big enough deal because the competition is top notch. To win one... well, you just don't wake up one morning with one of these. Elephino-rob 13:30, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I am sure the person is notable. What I am trying to tell is that he is not notable enough for a Wikipedia article, since I don;t believe Wikipedia should include every person's bio who have some claim to notability. The number of somewhat notable people is really humongous, much beyond the scope of even a Encyclopedia Galactica like Asimov imagined. Aditya Kabir 16:41, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
The Wikipedia article on the National Magazine Award states the award is "roughly equivalent to the Pulitzer Prizes". WP:N states that a person is notable if "The person has received significant recognized awards or honors." (I was quoting an old version of WP:N in my earlier post. so the book sales requirement is no longer listed). Based on the definition of WP:N, he qualifies for inclusion. I'm not saying this is a high priority article, but Schuler is certainly notable based on the current guidelines of Wikipedia. --Ataricodfish 19:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure you or anyone can really quantify notability. What's the measurement? According to WP's current criteria for notability, the article qualifies. --Elephino-rob 14:33, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unnecessary information

I sincerely hope that editors will refrain from adding (and, diligently re-adding) unnecessary information to articles. If they want it too badly the web is ready to take in one more fansite. Wikipedia doesn't have unlimited serverspace. Google, owner of Aamazon, has much more serverspace, as they make a profit out of it. Please, let the Aamazon information be at amazon.com, and let Wikipedia become a respectable encyclopedia. Aditya Kabir 04:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] No-notability

WP:NOTE states that A topic is notable if it has received significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of the topic. Here, significant means that the source speaks on the subject in detail, rather than a mention in passing or name drop. Significant means more than trivial but less than important. Reliable means credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand (as per WP:RS). Independent excludes self-published books, personal websites, and blogs (as per WP:SPS).

And, these guidelines stand directly against using the subject's personal advertising blog, passing mention in a a few websites, a couple of interviews repeated across a number of promotional sites or amazon.com reviews that aim mostly at making a sell to establish notability.

For further information I'm quoting from WP:BIO:

(notability criterion for) Creative professionals: scientists, academics, economists, professors, authors, editors, journalists, filmmakers, photographers, artists, architects, engineers, and other creative professionals.

  • The person is regarded as an important figure or is widely cited by their peers or successors.
  • The person is known for originating a significant new concept, theory or technique.
  • The person has created, or played a major role in co-creating, a significant or well-known work, or collective body of work, which has been the subject of an independent book or feature-length film, or of multiple independent periodical articles or reviews.
  • The person's work either (a) has been displayed in a significant exhibition or as a monument (b) has won significant critical attention, or (c) is represented within the permanent collection of a significant gallery or museum of more than local significance.

I have searched long and hard to get the subject/article meet those criterion, and failed. Part of 21,000 strong community, shared winner of a small time award in a tinsy-winsy category, writer of a few hardly-notable book, and a speaker among hundreds in couple of large conventions - that's all that could be established about the subject. That too not very reliably. Reason enough to get me so convinced of the subject's non-notability and the sources non-reliability. Cheers. Aditya Kabir 18:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

p.s. I also have tried tagging it for notability concerns and tried to draw expert attention to the article. Unfortunately, the only response I recieved was repeated removal of the tags. Cheers. Aditya Kabir 18:56, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

"... has won significant critical attention." Please see National Magazine Awards. Elephino-rob 13:36, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] About AFD Discussion

I hope, this valuable AFD discussion will increase some wisdom of nominator and reduce his silly like angry--NAHID 06:38, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

What an amazing good luck! Finally User:NAHID writes something on the talk page, even though it was only to draw attention to my "silly angry" (may be he wanted to write "silly anger"). But, when I kept tagging the article for expert attention, and he kept removing them, he never wrote one line on the talk page (Here goes the links for the removals - the first removal, the second removal, the third removal, the fourth removal, and the fifth removal), though I kept repeating the request for an explanation in the summary. It was kind of funny for someone who displays a userbox on his userpage that says - "This user prefers discussing changes on the talkpage rather than engaging in an edit war".
I also posted to his talk page who kept removing the tags without improving the article along the same line. But, that message was removed, too, without any response. He never took part in the AfD, though he proudly quotes the article as his creation, along with two other articles quoted in the same vain - Ian King, which he never edited, and Media and Development Communication, which doesn't even exist (it's a collection of two different links there).
Well, I could have ignored his comment, and refrained from a response. But, it gets kind of annoying when User:NAHID spends one-third of his wiki-time attacking me, my contributions and anything else I am working on. Harassment and trolling are bad things to do here, it's even worse when someone becomes really good and sneaky about it, and it is worst when that person starts getting incivil at that. I guess, I should report this user, only I don't have the time right now to follow through the review. Cheers. Aditya Kabir 20:39, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
And, I forgot to mention how amazed I am to see the community in action. The AfD has really brought out the best in us, as editors came forward to fill in the blanks to establish notability of the subject and verifiability of the information. I wish User:NAHID did not remove those tags I put, or else this article may have become what it is now much earlier. I worked long and hard on making it better fitting article, which can hardly be said of the one who comments on me. Aditya Kabir 20:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Please, review WP:TALK and WP:NOT#FORUM before any discussion on article talk page.--NAHID 16:25, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the direction. But, which part of my posts here doesn't comply with the guidelines? Aditya Kabir 15:16, 8 July 2007 (UTC)