User talk:Traceylott

David S. Gruder
As with all articles about living persons, it needs either a BLP tag or a WPBiography tag with the "living=yes" parameter on the talk page. I've added the latter. I will also added other tags and comments to both the article and the talk pages that indicate work needs to be done.

Any article about a person and for that matter almost all articles should be based entirely or almost entirely on independent, reliable sources, preferably "secondary" sources. The two existing sources are too closely tied to the person and his work to be considered independent. Reliable sources include mainstream newspapers, books written by others which do not advocate the same position he does, and other sources that do not have an conflict of interest. You can use primary sources for details. For example, if you can find 3 different newspapers that mention a major talk he did, you can use a primary source to get the exact date or location of the talk. But without the mention in the newspapers, the talk isn't encyclopedic. If you cannot find reliable secondary sources to prove his notability or provide encyclopedic information, then he may not meet the notability criteria and the article will likely fail a Articles for Deletion request or even be speedily deleted. For what it's worth, most psychiatrists and psychologists are not notable even if they are nationally known within the field. Those who advise the President of the United States in a public role, those who are media stars like Dr. Phil or who have national newspaper advice columns like Dr. Ruth, and those who have risen to the rank of University President or President of a professional society, as well as those who have won world-class awards like the Nobel Prize or even major national awards are generally notable. As a general rule, if he hasn't been in multiple wire stories that were printed in papers nationwide, he's not notable. Even if he has been, he still may be of only minor notability, and the size and scope of an article about him should be correspondingly small. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Continuing: My comments and those of others in Deletion_review/Log/2008_March_26 still stand.  You have addressed (c) but not notability.  It will be very difficult to make an article about this person good enough to survive AfD if the AfD is done on notability grounds.  It may be better to write a book-stub or short article about the award-winning book or books, but not have an article about the person.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  20:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Your additional references
You added the following references to David S. Gruder and asked me to critique them.

The New IQ IntegrityPledge.Org Dallas Morning News Pittsburgh Post Gazette Reuters Public Journalist Sound Authors SelfGrowth.com Think About It

I think it would be far better if you critiqued them yourself using the criteria at WP:VERIFY. It is important that you learn how to do this yourself. If, after you critique them yourself, you still need help with "maybe" cases, let me know. If you get it wrong, I or another editor will start removing the references after a few days and/or add one of the cleanup templates related to poor-quality references. You should be prepared to defend references that are of dubious or iffy quality. Please also read WP:RELIABLE and most importantly, WP:PILLARS before continuing. For what it's worth, only 2 or 3 of the sources above are good secondary sources. Good secondary sources are required to establish notability, but the notability must be claimed in the article with the source clearly cited as an in-line reference or footnote. Once this is done, primary sources can be used to fill in details provided it does not turn into an advertisement. Articles that read like ads tend to be AfD'd as spam. For people of minor notability such as this gentleman, a short article that merely gives a very basic career-bio, year and place of birth, place of current residence, current employer or affiliation, plus brief information surrounding the areas of notability is far more likely to survive than a longer article that reads like a mini-biography curriculum vitae/resume where 90% of the article looks like spam. Personally, I would focus on his work as it pertains to the current election and briefly mention his book award and leave it at that as far as his work is concerned. I would use in-line references to back up everything. I would mention one and only one of his web sites in an external links section. If you do mention work related to the current presidential election, put United States presidential election, 2008 in the "See Also" section. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  16:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

David S. Gruder part 3
You are welcome. I'm still concerned that David S. Gruder may eventually fall to WP:AfD, but in the meantime...

Only mention the PIRT in the context of articles in major news sites, otherwise leave it out. Don't give it undue weight - if it's only mentioned lightly in the press, only mention it lightly. If 4 years from now it becomes a standard rating tool for national elections, then it should get a lot of space and maybe even its own article. You are right that it looks spammish, and you will have to work to avoid that. One option is to not mention "The New IQ" at all. As for his 3 awards, seeing an award for yourself is considered a "primary source" and is discouraged except to support secondary sources. If they weren't mentioned in the press and aren't specifically mentioned on the award-grantor's web site, leave them off for now. Press reports are preferred as they are secondary sources. Consider only mentioning the most prominent of the awards. After all, you probably aren't mentioning the blue ribbon he got in the science fair in elementary school :). By the way, the fact that you have seen the physical awards indicates you may be too close to this person to be a good editor for the article.  If this ever goes to AfD, you should make it crystal clear what your relationship to him is before defending the article.  It's far better to be honest up-front and have some people question your motives than to have it discovered later and have everyone question them.  As far as inline citations, using  inline-style or -style footnotes are equally valid, although footnotes are more common than inline citations.  Both are far preferable to end-notes, because it's clear what each reference is supporting.  By the way, did you know that if you use the same reference twice, you can use for the first occurrence and  for each subsequent occurrence? Also, if you use footnotes, be sure to add '' ==References== '' near the bottom of your article. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  18:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)