User:Cullen328/sandbox/Evans


 * Keep This article in its current form is very bad. The history of the article is awful. The conduct of the subject and his supporters is horrible. That conduct includes harassment of good faith Wikipedia editors and legal threats against editors, which are especially chilling since this person has a significant history of suing people on the thinnest of grounds. Many of the claims in the article and by those defending this article are spurious. It is a perfect example of how aggressive editing by accounts with glaring conflicts of interest and promotional intent results in really poor quality articles. But such articles should not be deleted if the topic is notable. Instead, the bad aspects should be removed by uninvolved neutral editors, transforming such articles into something neutral and acceptable. If this article is kept, I recommend that it should be under extended confirmed protection for years to come, so that experienced, uninvolved editors can prune away all the garbage, resulting in a dramatically shorter article that neutrally summarizes what the actually reliable and independent sources say about this entertainer. No puffery allowed.


 * Why do I think that he is notable then? Consider this 1999 article in the Las Vegas Sun, which simultaneously devotes significant coverage to Evans and also describes behavioral patterns that we can still observe in 23 years later. Right before the turn of the century and two years before Wikipedia was created, we read that Evans was seemingly obsessed with the trivial factoid that he was the only singer to record a CD at a certain Vegas casino that has since been torn down. . On the other hand, this is a 20 paragraph review of his 19 song CD that includes grudging praise such as On the third hand, this 1998 piece in the same newspaper seems to be a credulous recapitulation of his press releases, with no evidence of independent reporting. There was a lot of that in Las Vegas in the 1990s and a whole lot more of it everywhere today.


 * This Boston Globe article about his Fenway Park song is also a point in favor of his notability, while also providing indications of his relentless self-promotonalism. The repeated claims that somehow he is in the Baseball Hall of Fame just because his song was accepted into their library is both ludicrous and bizarre. As if someone quoted at length in the Congressional Record is somehow in Congress. That is the kind of never-ending promotionalism that we are up against. But it is a fact that this song received significant coverage in reliable sources, and that is an argument in favor of keeping this article.


 * Let's debunk some of the other spurious claims in the article. He is not notable as an actor, because all of his roles were bit parts and no reliable independent sources devote significant coverage to his acting, although a few parrot his filmography as presented in his press releases. He is not notable as a politician because he has never held political office and has been trounced in every election in which he has been a candidate. He is not notable as an author because his books have only received coverage obviously generated by press releases, or on the "Kirkus Indie" site, which is "pay for play" and the exact opposite of a reliable source for books. He is not a big band singer since his bands usually consist of four instruments at most. He is not notable because he has been an opening act for clearly notable entertainers. Notability is not inherited by opening for stars or getting photographed with stars. He is not notable because of alleged Asian big hits referenced to reprints of his press releases, or alleged Canadian big hits cited to Las Vegas Sun recapitulations of his press releases. The Asian and Canadian sources for these extraordinary claims are nowhere to be found. He is not notable as a criminal, because his Casey Kasem scam was mundane and long ago. He is not even notable as someone who files a lot of lawsuits, although that is a verifiable fact. His lawsuits are of little consequence. He is borderline notable as a singer, or nightclub crooner, to use the slang term that he has embraced. He is, as the newspaper that has given him the most coverage describes him, a.


 * So, let's keep the article, identify the actual independent reliable sources thst devote significant coverage to this entertainer, neutrally summarize what those sources say, and vigorously remove everything else. If "Crooner" Evans or his meatpuppets pop up to promote him again, they should be blocked on sight.