Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alen J. Salerian


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete--Ymblanter (talk) 07:42, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Alen J. Salerian

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I began vetting the article for compliance with WP:BLP and found myself deleting the entire page, with the exception of a WP:ONEEVENT. Almost everything in the article was cited to primary sources, court records, gossip/alternative magazines like the Washingtonian, brief mentions, or sources that do not even mention Salerian. I'm not sure how to categorize this source. The remaining sources that were reliable often had just 1 paragraph on him or were blurbs from a press release and nothing in-depth.

You can see the article before my trimming here for reference.

The only event Salerian is known for is being indicted for prescribing pain pills to drug dealers. First this appears to potentially be related to psychological or mental problems, making the article rather insensitive. Second, It appears to be a very minor news item, attracting few readers here and being of little importance to an encyclopedia. Third, there's WP:ONEEVENT; there is no way to create a full biographical profile here using BLP-compliant sources.

This article serves a tremendous opportunity to harm and embarrass a living person and no meaningful benefit to Wikipedia. I will ask the article-subject to confirm BLPREQUESTDELETE as well. CorporateM (Talk) 02:34, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  Everymorning   talk  03:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions.  Everymorning   talk  03:58, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Maryland-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 21:22, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Washington, D.C.-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 21:22, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * lol, The Washingtonian is definitely a legitimate source.
 * Alen Salerian is notable. Here's why: he worked for the FBI, received a lot of news coverage about his dealings with Robert Hanssen (Salerian appeared as a psychiatric expert on 48 Hours where he allegedly violated doctor-patient confidentiality), regularly appeared on Channel 9 for years as a psychiatric expert, wrote op-eds that were published in many newspapers such as USA Today and the Washington Post (which CorporateM deleted from Salerian's Wikipedia article).
 * Please read this story as to why Salerian is notable: The Spectacular Unraveling of Washington’s Favorite Shrink (this article also includes the information I've listed above) 108.27.38.227 (talk) 21:32, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Op-eds cannot be used as sources under any circumstance, with the very rare exception that the op-ed received secondary coverage and is being used as a primary source to supplement secondary ones. The article-subject's own publication of material is also not relevant, since we need credible, independent sources authored by professional journalists and academics as oppose to the article-subject.


 * The Washingtonian is at least partially based on crowd-sourced stories submitted to the publication. You can see their submission guidelines here. This story appears to be one such case where the article was submitted, since the author has written less than a dozen articles for the publication. Furthermore, their submission guidelines say that they are interested in almost any topic and that you don't have to be a professional journalist to submit. This is a common problem with many publications that embrace citizen journalism. I had this problem recently where a local publication was publishing attack pieces on a politician, without disclosing that they were crowd-sourced articles. Generally speaking any guest-written content in a news publication cannot be used. CorporateM (Talk) 21:56, 11 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That's ridiculous. I strongly disagree with you. Ariel Sabar is a professional journalist and writer.
 * "Op-eds cannot be used as sources under any circumstance" What does that have to do with this? 108.27.38.227 (talk) 23:33, 11 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete At best this is one event. That he wrote op-eds tells us nothing. Writing op-eds does not make one notable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:36, 12 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What is the one event? His association with the Robert Hanssen case or his arrest? 108.27.38.227 (talk) 01:03, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete Neither writing op eds, nor being an expert witness, nor the combination of the two, make someone notable under wp:GNG. BakerStMD T&#124;C 19:21, 12 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Delete I researched this physician. He apparently has a long successful career that is not mentioned here. I agree that the article has no merit as main source. This just happened to be a hot topic. An encyclopedia is not a place for political debates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Corpwell (talk • contribs) 16:42, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Note:, , and  have very similar editing histories. 108.27.38.227 (talk) 23:59, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.